


Wake

by NiteWrighter



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rise of Empire Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Enemies to Friends, F/M, Friends to Enemies, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Limbs, Order 66, Past Child Abuse, Pining, Post-Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Pre-Star Wars: A New Hope, Pre-Star Wars: Rebels, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-12 17:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 78,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9082345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiteWrighter/pseuds/NiteWrighter
Summary: Keep hoping. Keep believing in life, in good, even if it's the hardest thing in the galaxy.A Jedi, an Archivist, a Mandalorian and a handful of younglings struggle to survive in the midst of the Jedi Purge.





	1. The Archivist's Escape

Cyp’s heart was thumping hard in his chest and ears as he moved to the small crack where a light was shining through. Running into a contingent of clones at the garages, they had slipped into a service shaft heading back towards the temple’s heart, usually reserved for MSE droids and astromechs, a tough squeeze for most jedi knights, but between a lanky redheaded Educorps teacher and three younglings, it was a claustrophobic, but tolerable fit, and a better hiding place than he thought he could get. There had originally been five of them, the archivist, the padawan, and the three younglings, but Zett had run off to try and find some means of leaving the temple at the launchpads, and hadn’t come back. Cyp sent fumbling thoughts through the force to find the padawan but his instincts told him the worst had happened—well maybe he was telling himself they were instincts because calling it ‘common sense’ at this point felt too fatalistic to him. You didn’t need the Force to know that if Zett was still alive, he would have made it back to them by now. Cyp felt a small slightly greasy hand squeeze at his fingers and glanced down at Oda, the Rodian funk coming off of him a little stronger than usual. Tepui’s breath was steady on the back of Cyp’s neck and her tentacles shifted on his shoulders occasionally, two of them bandaged stubs. The shock of losing two of her head-tresses had rendered the little Nautolan unconscious, but she was alive—she would survive…at least as long as Cyp could help it. It had been a grueling 4 hours since the attack began and they had been chased by blaster fire and actual fire from rathole to rathole to nook and cranny and pile of rubble.

 

“Master Vespa?” Galix piped up from behind Oda.

“Sh—” Cyp held up a hand and the youngling went quiet. He stared through that little crack, waiting for clone trooper boots to thunder by again. The younglings were exhausted, hungry, and had gone through what no child should have to go through and saw what no child should have to see such a short time ago. He heard a soft sniffle and he turned on his heel to see Galix rubbing his eye. “Master Vespa?” Galix’s voice was now choked by barely suppressed crying.

“I’m not a Master, Galix, remember? I’m just…” his knuckles tightened on the lightsaber he had grabbed off of a fallen master, “I’m just an archivist, remember? Just Cyp.” ‘Glorified younglingsitter’ that was what they had called him. The other initiates who opted to go into the trials meant it in a friendly way ‘Don’t know why you’re backing down and just going off to be a glorified younglingsitter’ they’d say. But no, he decided he was too tired of hearing of Masters and Padawans taking on the titles of ‘general’ and ‘commander.’ I’m no commander, he had thought to himself, and he had contented himself with this. And now here he was, a glorified younglingsitter in a war that had gotten too close, too bloody, and too bleak in a too short amount of time. Could you even call it a war at this point? The clone troopers were supposed to be their allies, yet they, not the separatists were the ones killing the Jedi. What was happening to the jedi on other planets? The jedi in other systems? Aria. A terrifying image of light falling out of gray eyes and pale braids scorched and sticky with blood flashed into his mind and he shook his head. He couldn’t think about that now. He couldn’t think about her now. When the attacks had first started He could feel the death in the temple, he could feel the fear and the despair.

“Are we going to die, Cyp?” Galix’s question was quiet and yet so sharp. Oda’s fingers pinched on Cyp’s own.

The words caught in Cyp’s throat. They could feel the force same as him, they knew he was afraid too. “We’re going to try very hard not to, aren’t we?” he said, looking down at the two younglings and readjusted the third as she was slowly sliding down his back. The only ones he could find. The only ones he could save. How many of their peers had they seen murdered before they hid? “You’ve all been very brave. You’ve all had to be a lot braver than any initiate has had to be before you to live this long. I’m going to need all of you to be brave for a while longer, all right?”

“Fear is the path to the dark side,” Oda whispered. Cyp sighed. He knew that Oda was reaching out for any of the Jedi teachings to get him through this, but it didn’t exactly help.

An internal part of Cyp that was far more bitter than he cared to admit said, I hate that line.

“Fear is normal,” Cyp said, going down on one knee and looking at all of them, “Remember: Emotion, yet peace. It’s fine to have fear—-you just can’t let it control you,” Cyp reached out a hand to wipe some of the sooty tear streaks off of Oda’s face when he realized that there was a cut on the back of his hand that had rendered it really bloody and he withdrew it and wiped it on his robes.

“Do you think Zett was able to get out?”

No. “I hope so. He’s a very good Padawan, isn’t he? The best we can do is keep moving and hope for the—-” Cyp paused and sniffed the air. Smoke. In a passage this small it wouldn’t take long to asphyxiate all of them in minutes. “Move,” he said “Get low.” He dropped down to his hands and knees and the other younglings ducked as they quickly moved along the little service corridor until they finally reached a panel he could squeeze through “Galix,” he gently took Tepui off of his shoulders and Galix held out his arms for the little Nautolan to lean against him as Cyp braced his back against the wall and kicked out a panel Oda caught the panel before it could clatter to the ground and set it down as quietly as possible. “I’ll give you the signal when it’s safe,” said Cyp. Getting his shoulders through was the hardest part but he was able to scramble out. He knew instantly where he was. Staying low, he crept between two high shelves of records and peeked out. He felt his heart drop into his gut. The archives, his sanctuary, splashed with blood and viscera of numerous colors, shelves scorched, walls pocked by blaster fire. He heard a comm crackle and backed up behind the shelf. The younglings, he suddenly remembered. He knew there were clone troopers in the archives, but he couldn’t let them suffocate in the passage. “Galix,” he leaned near the opening in the wall, “Get Tepui thr—”

Galix was already moving and Tepui was halfway out. Cyp reached forward to guide her out of the space in the wall. Cyp was moving to get her back onto his shoulders when her brow furrowed and she moaned.

No, don’t wake up now, Cyp thought as Galix and Oda slipped out of the wall silently. Tepui’s eyes were still closed but her hand moved to where the two stubs of her head-tendrils were and she moaned again.

“Tay! Shush!” hissed Galix, and Tepui opened her eyes. Her breath went short and shuddering and her hand was now pawing, shaking at her head tendril stubs now and she was whining something in Nautoli, then in Anselmian before she blinked several times and shook her head. “Cyp?” she murmured, “Where’s Master Drallig?”

Cyp put a finger to his lips and she fell quiet, though another small whine was muffled in her throat. Master Fisto had once told him that Nautolan head tendrils were like fingers and ears at once. Cyp didn’t want to imagine how much it hurt to lose one, let alone two. “Just stay quiet,” Cyp said, taking the two bandaged stubs in his hand. He closed his eyes and tried to let the force channel through his fingers. Who do you think you’re kidding? the bitter voice he kept trying to tamp down spoke up through his fear and his hatred of his own helplessness, Aria was always the better healer. You know that. He shook his head and inhaled then exhaled. Mend the flesh—at least ease the pain. Let the force flow through. Believe in the force—let yourself be swallowed up by fear and doubt and watch the force fizzle away with it. Keep hoping. Keep believing in life, in good, even if it’s the hardest thing in the galaxy.

“Weird… when the sabers are on training mode, they aren’t supposed to burn like this,” he remembered a voice, accented by oddly birdlike Eriduani with badly-hidden Umbaran, he remembered a sunlit room and a row of weeping blisters on his arm and the chemical-sweet smell of bacta salve.

“I don’t think I want to be a Jedi,” he remembered his own voice.

“Don’t say that Cyp,” Her touch had stung before it softened with the force, “You’re my best friend. I can’t imagine being a jedi without you.”

“So don’t be a jedi. We can join the service corps together.” He remembered seeing the Umbaran in her flash in those big gray eyes when he made that suggestion, weighing options. “You’d make a great healer, Aria,” he added. She didn’t consider it for more than a second. They both already knew that she had made her choice long before and that no choice he would make would get in the way of that. He was okay with that. He probably wouldn’t like her in the same way if she was any other way.

“I can do more as a Jedi,” she said. The idea of her dead in some field on some far away planet, shot down by clone troopers she thought she could trust flashed in his mind again and his eyes opened. Tepui’s breathing had slowed and her moans had quieted.

“Thought you were an archivist,” Galix whispered as Tepui sat up and gingerly touched at her head tendrils.

“Service Corps are a bit shorthanded when everyone’s off playing general,” said Cyp, “Even archivists help out in the Halls of Healing when they’re needed.” He looked at Tepui, “Better?” Tepui gave a single nod. It was only temporary, he knew the pain would come back later. Everything he was doing now was only buying time. Oda gasped and Cyp glanced up. He saw a pale shape reflected in the Rodian’s eyes and Cyp’s hand went to the lightsaber he had taken and he turned around. A taller-than-most-humans temple guardsman was standing behind him, one hand on an sheathed lightsaber pike in case Cyp needed to be disarmed. There was a beat where each recognized the other as non-hostile. The guardsman checked behind him before dropping to one knee in front of the four of them. “It is good to see a jedi survived. I was beginning to fear the worst.”  
All the younglings looked at Cyp and the guardsman caught on instantly. “You’re not a jedi,” he said.

“Service corps. Archivist,” Cyp shrugged, “What’s happened? Why are they doing this?”

The guardsman shook his head. “I know little. From what I’ve been able to pick up from the holonews and the troopers own chatter, Master Yoda and several other members of the council attempted a coup against Chancellor Palpatine.”

Cyp did a huffing scoff. “That—that doesn’t make sense. That can’t be true. Jedi don’t start coups.”

“Apparently the council did.”

“But that’s—” Cyp ran a hand through his hair, “They can’t kill all of us for something only the council did!”

“An excellent observation. If only we could convince the troopers currently slaughtering every Jedi, padawan, and youngling in the temple. Then they would stop and everything would go back to normal.”

Cyp stared at the guardsman for a moment. “Everyone’s already dying, you know. You don’t need to be an ass on top of it.”

The guardsman chuckled softly but that chuckle quickly fell quiet. “My duty has always been to protect this temple,” he said.

Cyp glanced around. “Good job.” The bitter voice he worked to keep tamped down finally pushed past his better judgment.

If the comment had gotten any reaction out of the guardsman, it wasn’t going to show up past the mask. The guardsman looked across the four of them, “Seeing as I’ve failed to protect the temple my protection falls to you. I will do everything in my power to see your safe exit from here.” He suddenly paused and stood up.

“Clone troopers?” Cyp guessed.

“Look!” Oda pointed at some shape scuttling over the top of the record shelf. The guardsman extended a hand and the shape suddenly flew off the shelf and landed in his hand. “Seeker droid,” he said before immediately crushing it in his hands, “We should get moving again or else the clones will…” the guardsman trailed off and paused, looking at the sparking, broken interior of the droid, “This isn’t republic standard. It’s been heavily customized.” They heard a clatter and some quiet swearing a few rows away. The guardsman stood up, “Stay here and stay hidden.” The guardsman stood up and hurried out of the corridor of shelves. Cyp and the younglings sat quietly.

“Do you think they brought in assassins?” Galix whispered.

“What?”

“Who has a super-customized seeker droid?” Galix said, picking up the broken bits of the droid and turning them over in his hands.

“ow—-OW! I said I’m complying! This is complying—Ow!“ In moments a black-clad figure was slammed to the ground in front of Cyp and the younglings, the guardsman pinning his arms back. The guardsman yanked away a helm and face-covering to reveal a male human with curly dark hair that was shaved on the sides and in the back.

“He does, I guess,” said Cyp, looking at Galix.

“He claims he’s an archivist. Do you know him?” the guardsman said, knotting his hand into the man’s hair and jerking upward so that Cyp could see his face. It was bloodied, apparently from the guardsman, but he had good skin and well proportioned features.

‘You know me,” he said, smiling at Cyp. He had a good smile too, albeit pinkened by blood. There was something so open and pleading about his face that Cyp almost wanted to lie and say ‘yes’ but considering what was currently going on there was no room to trust anyone on a feeling.

“I don’t know him” said Cyp.

“A liar and a looter,” said the guardsman, slamming the man’s head into the floor tiles, causing the younglings to flinch back.

“I’m trying to help!” the man insisted.

“You were taking advantage of the purge to try and steal from the archives.”

“Save! Not steal!”

“Save?” Cyp suddenly leaned forward.

“They’re aiming to kill the jedi, right? They’re purging them. It’s happening on every world. Bounties are going up for the ones that disappear. When all the jedi are gone, what’s going to happen to their archives? What are they going to do with everything the Jedi know? With everything everyone remembers about the jedi? Do you think they’ll share it with all the galaxy?”

“So out of the goodness of your heart you come in to try and salvage what you could from the archives and save it from whatever the army of the republic’s doing?”

“Well it’s not like the jedi are in a position to do that what with all the being shot and arrested, are they?”

“You seem to know an awful lot about the situation,” the guardsman said.

“I make it my business to be as well-informed as possible before I head into a warzone,” said the man, “I have a place—There are about to be very very few safe places in the galaxy and I intend to bring whatever knowledge I can save to that place.” He looked at Cyp, then looked at the younglings, “I can bring you to that place. I can keep you safe too.”

“And why should any of us trust you?” asked Cyp.

“We both know there are not that many options or that much time, but if you really must, by all means, look into my mind. Jedi can do that, right?”

The guardsman didn’t need another second of convincing. “Archivist,” he motioned to Cyp, “Help me.” He dug his hands through the man’s hair and Cyp heard him inhale beneath his mask. Cyp extended his own hand toward the man’s face.

“Renatus Milenzo,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re going to be sifting through my mind, you might as well know my name first, right?”

“Oh. Cyp Vespa.”

“Nice meeting you Cihhh…”

Renatus’s breath suddenly went ragged and he was shaking. His eyes rolled back in his head and suddenly a rush of images flooded through Cyp’s mind. He saw a villa built into the side of a mountain. Big halls with high ceilings, red tapestries and frescoes on the walls. A woman reading in a garden. Men in cloaks at the door. Father sent them away. Take me with you I don’t want to stay here. Not with him. It’s safe here. It’s safer than anywhere in the galaxy. The servants keep saying its safe here but you don’t feel safe with Father. Ships overhead. Smoke on the horizon. Its safe here. Seeing flecks your own blood on the white stone, Father rolls his knuckles and says he hopes you understand this is for your own good. This is for Serenno’s greater good. The woman in the garden is looking up and smiling. Suddenly she’s at the door and she’s looking at you and the light of the sun is catching in the wetness of her eyes. She wipes her eyes and forces a smile, tells you to be good, and walks through the door. She will never come back. She would take you with her if she could. She knows Father would hunt you both down if she did.

Cyp’s mind wavered at the sudden wave of grief and loneliness that soaked this memory and he remembered Aria fidgeting with her padawan braid at the launchpads and the way her face lit up when she saw him. “I was so scared you wouldn’t come.”

“Please be safe out there,” he tried to keep the fear out of his voice. They hugged so tightly he was scared he’d break her rib. Cyp broke away altogether from Renatus’s mind and shook his head. No, he hadn’t found out what he needed to find out yet. He looked back at the younglings, huddled together, staring back at him, tucked tightly against the records shelves and gripping each-others’ hands. Renatus’s mind was a mess. But he had to find out if he was telling the truth about wanting to help. Cyp sighed and extended his hand toward Renatus and closed his eyes again.

Stay here and focus on your studies. You’re safer than anyone else in the galaxy. They’re dying out there and you can feel it you can feel it every time. If Father let you leave you could do something about it but he doesn’t. Why should you care so much if it never comes that close. Keep busy. Keep working. Don’t make eye contact with Father. Keep studying. Father’s turning the servants away. Says he can’t trust anyone—they’re republic spies. There are fewer and fewer people to talk to. Keep your hands busy. Keep reading your books and watching your holos. You only have these small means to effect your world. Why do you keep fiddling around with the droids, that’s servants’ work. Droids are the only servants we have left someone has to take care of them. Father’s cough keeps getting worse. You remember his fist on your temple as you feel the pulse leaving his mottled hand. This is why you stayed. This, he says is a greater duty and destiny than being some religious fanatic waving a lightsaber around. A Count of Serenno doesn’t complain or cry. His duty is to his people. Why have you seen so few people then. Why are the halls so empty. It’s safe here. It’s safe here. There are fires and death out there in the galaxy. You can feel them. Read. You can’t stay here forever. What if you could save people. Father can’t stop you from going out in the world anymore are you going to stand by and let them burn the one thing you always wanted to be to the ground.

Cyp breathed in sharply and broke his mind off from Renatus. The guardsman as well got off Renatus and allowed him to sit up and roll his shoulders. “You’re a Separatist,” Cyp said looking at Renatus. Renatus looked ready to throw up.

“Not a,” he gagged, “Not a Separatist. Just happened to be on a planet full of them.”

“You’re Serennoan,” said the guardsman. He looked at Cyp, “At this point a separatist hiding place is a safer bet than anywhere in the republic.”

“Not a Separatist,” Renatus repeated, though clearly still trying to regain his bearings.

“Your intentions are truly to save the Jedi history,” said the guardsman.

“You saw,” said Renatus, rubbing his head.

“So the question from here is how do you intend on getting these four out?”

“You’re not coming?” Cyp turned to the guardsman.

“My duty is protecting the temple. I am not leaving my post,” He looked at Renatus, “Your plan.”

“I never go in anywhere without an exit strategy,” said Renatus, “I have four. Plan One is—”

The sound of chatter on clone comms echoed through the archives.

“Run through another sweep of the area. Lord Vader says there should be more bodies. There must be some still hiding.”

“Aaaaand I guess we’re locked in on Plan Four,” said Renatus, standing up.

“Get them out of here,” said the guardsman standing up, “I’ll divert them.”

“Thank you,” Cyp said, but he was pretty sure the guardsman wasn’t even listening as he stood up and ran out of the corridor, his lightsaber pike alighting. There were shouts and blaster fire and Cyp felt his gut wrench all over again.

“Time to go,” Renatus said, grabbing Tepui’s hand and then yanking Cyp to his feet. He then started hurrying them to even deeper corridors of the archives, grabbing as many records as he could fit into his satchel as he could as he did so. It looked a lot like looting, but Cyp didn’t want to argue with wanting to save all they could. He only wished he had a bag to grab what he could with as well.

“I hope Plan Four is good,” muttered Cyp as Renatus began feeling around the wall panels.

“Plan Four is great,” said Renatus.

—

Garbage. Plan Four was literally garbage. They slid down a ventilation shaft to the kitchens, which were, surprisingly mostly untouched by blaster fire or blood. Hard to think of food in a bloody purge, Cyp figured. From the kitchens they took a shaft that was meant for organic kitchen waste to a below-temple channel that the agricorps members referred to as “Ferti-slurry.” It was basically a river of organic garbage and waste-water (Not from plumbing, you didn’t want to make fertilizer from the waste of unknown species), that ran to composting vats for the temple’s gardens. The garbage rose up to Cyp’s chest, meaning that it was above head-level for the younglings. Oda rode on Renatus’ shoulders, Tepui rode on Cyp’s shoulders, and Cyp and Renatus both had to hold one of Galix’s hands to keep his head above the stinking garbage water. The escape was silent, marked by the constant fear of death. The younglings were uneasy, the only reason they had any trust at all in Renatus was because of Cyp. They scrambled out of the compost vats and Cyp and the younglings caught their breath for a moment.

“I never want to do anything like that again,” Cyp said, peeling a bit of rotten meiloorun rind off of his clothes.

“I have bad news,” said Renatus, prying open a sewer grate.

Of course they had to go through the sewers. Of course they did. No, it made total sense. Clone troopers were patrolling the streets, the Coruscant Police had all-points-bulletins put out on any rogue jedi wandering the city. They had to stay out of sight. At the very least Coruscant’s sewers weren’t chest height, and at some points there were walkways along the side so that you weren’t walking in the shit of who-knows-what-species the entire time, still, Cyp’s skin was crawling. At some point Oda started crying but Cyp was so tired he didn’t even bother to calm the Rodian down. The chatter of the city above and all the speeders was so loud it hardly mattered anyway. They took brief break to sit down because the younglings were so exhausted, and Galix sat down and was passed out within a minute. Cyp had to carry Galix for an hour before he woke up and could walk again. Oda was still crying. It was hours before they stopped and Renatus looked up through a sewer grate overhead and said, “Here.”

They exited out of the sewer onto a dark tarmac where a droid waited by a sleek red skiff.

“Sir,” a droid approached them, “Did your mission go well?”

“Ready the ship and send a message back to the estate to prepare for my arrival,” said Renatus, he glanced back at Cyp and the younglings, “And four guests.”

The temple was still burning as the ship exited coruscant’s atmosphere. There was a fire on the front steps that was separate from the rest of the burning temple, and that bitter part of Cyp knew exactly what that fire was. He sat next to Renatus in the cockpit and watched as the temple shrank to just a little orange ember in the distance. In the rear of the ship, the droid fussed over Oda, Galix, and Tepui, doing its best to clean the shit and garbage and blood off of them and trying to give them ration bars and water. Tepui had passed out again and the droid stuck an IV in her arm to keep her hydrated and try and replenish some of the nutrients lost after basically starving for the past day. The needle didn’t even wake her up. Cyp leaned back in his seat. Renatus didn’t say anything. Either he was too preoccupied by flying the ship or he knew Cyp was too tired to talk. Cyp only meant to rest his eyes for a moment but sleep caught him like quicksand, starting as exhaustion in his legs and then swallowing him up the more he struggled against it.


	2. The Mandalorian's Prayer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A broke Mandalorian attempts to capture a Jedi for a bounty. The Jedi does not like this.

The warrant crackled a bit on his holoscreen as he checked the number again. Still 10,000 credits. Imperial credits, not republic. He wondered how the outer rim was doing, now drowning in useless separatist credits, and not-quite-transferring-over-to-imperial republic credits, and then there was the whole matter of wupiupi which with a quick holonet search and some calculations he might know how much his meager sums might be out on a Hutt-ruled world but he had a strong feeling it didn’t matter. Broke was broke was broke. Well not 100% broke—-broke was broke after the ship and after the ammunition, and then broke would be 100% broke after food. His stomach growled and for some reason the sound and sensation of it made his rifle feel heavier on his back. You always get fed first, don’t you, he thought to the rifle, glancing back at the picture on the holoscreen. Arian-Win Turturi. He hated when the eyes were the most prominent feature on someone because if you tried describing that person to someone everyone acted like you were married or something. “Well what did she look like?” “Human. She’s short and has big gray eyes.” “Ohhhh I see… girlfriend?” He kept telling himself that he would punch the next person who said that but three people had asked that and he hadn’t punched a single one. Hell the girlfriend bit, ex or otherwise worked and he figured the fewer people knew about a 10,000 credit bounty, the better.

 

 

 

For what it was worth, Lyalli was a pretty planet, even though the all the birdcalls day and night were going to drive him nuts. Carina City was the largest city on the planet, and even then the city was more or less a glorified spaceport, with the spaceport itself being one of the few things on the planet’s surface. The planet itself had originally been an omwati colony, everything built into the ridiculously big trees of the planet at varying levels. It probably would have been a great tourist destination if the birds didn’t drive you crazy. Not all the sounds were bad. There was a species here the locals called a ‘wood manta’ which hovered rather than flew and had had a wing span (Flap span?) about as wide as a speeder and a call that reminded him a bit of his mother’s humming. He had seen one when he was flying his ship in and the locals said that was good luck. He was at a small scrapper’s stand, helmet on, leaning as casually as he could against the counter. His stomach growled again and he wondered if people could hear it through the armor. “I’m looking for a girl,” he said.

The scrapper grunted and gestured down the street at a neon sign of a twi’lek silhouette suggestively kicking her legs, only the sign had been partially damaged and instead her left leg kept disappearing, getting cut off at the knee.

“Uh, no,” Val cleared his throat and leaned against the stand a bit more, “You wouldn’t find her in there. She’s human. Short. Blonde. Big gray eyes.”

“Ex-girlfriend?”

_I need to punch something._ “Does it matter?”

“Didn’t see her.”

“Okay, fine, thank you.” He glanced back at the sign. Then looked away and shook his head. Jedi were religious fanatical wizards. They didn’t hang around in strip clubs.

—-

The music had dimmed to a muffled heartbeat around her and she let the lights blur to blurry spheres of pink, yellow, and violet in the periphery of her vision as she tried to calm herself down. The panic had gripped her again for a brief couple moments and she had choked down a shot glass of something blue that tasted like ghibli fruit and burning. She inhaled deeply through her nose then immediately regretted inhaling in through her nose. She shook her head and tried to remember the meditation guides back at the temple. Let go of your surroundings. Breathe in. Breathe out. Tits. No, peace. Tits again. Focus. Think. Hips. Butt. “Refill your drink, sweetie?”

Aria blinked a few times. “What? Oh—No thank you.”

Breathe in and breathe out. The force flows through all things, past present and future. You are not there. You are here. There was blood there. There was the smell of scorched metal and plastic, that burning smell of self-cauterizing blaster wounds. There is not blood here. Here is where you stop. Here is where you think. Here is where you figure out where in the goddamned galaxy you can go that won’t get you killed immediately.

“Look kiddo you can either put some credits forward so I can get in your lap, buy another drink, or get out.”

“Pardon?”

“Credits or get out.”

“Oh—” Aria sat up with a start, “Sorry, I wasn’t…I—umm,” she looked to a sign on the wall that listed numerous drinks as well as rules for patrons. Aria cleared her throat. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot, kid,” The twi’lek dancer bucked her head forward and arched her back dramatically, which would have been a sexy move but Aria was leaning a bit too far forward and ended up getting smacked in the forehead by a lekku.

Aria rubbed her forehead, “So…imagine you thought your life was…it was pretty set and pretty sure ahead of you. And you knew what you were going to be for the rest of your life…But then something happens and now you don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know where you’re going. You have no idea how you’re going to—- ”

“Kid my manager’s telling me you gotta get something or leave.”

“Oh…” Aria felt for a couple credit chips and said, “Uh…” she pointed to an empty shot glass on the table in front of her. “Could I get another one of these?”

“ ‘nother blue thing for the kid!” the dancer shouted at the bar before turning around and focusing on another patron. Another shot was put in front of Aria. “9 Credits,” a voice said behind Aria. Aria felt inside her pocket again and turned around in her seat, making eye contact with the dowutin bartender.

“This one’s on the house,” she said, waving her hand slightly.

“This one’s…on the house,” the bartender said.

“You’re going to clean the bathrooms because they’re filthy,” Aria said with another slight hand wave. To be fair, they were filthy bathrooms.

“I’m going to clean the bathrooms because they’re filthy,” The bartender turned and walked off and Aria breathed out.

She knew she had to save her money. She wasn’t sure how much money it would take to get off-world, or where in the galaxy she could go. Lyalli itself was fairly backwater, but it was also where the empire knew she was, so it wouldn’t do to stay. The empire would most definitely be trying to keep track of who was leaving the planet, and between all of Lyalli’s trees, it would be no easy means to try and find an alternate way off the planet aside from the spaceport. She picked up the shot glass and stared at the bright blue…whatever the hell was in it, then set it down on the table in front of her. She had to figure something out.

—-

“It’s a 6 credit cover charge to get in,” the doorman said.

_This was a bad idea_ , thought Val, glancing back up at the Twi’lek on the sign. It was the only building he hadn’t checked yet. “Look I’m not going to be in there long. I’m just looking for some information.”

“You want information you go to an info kiosk. I need 6 credits.”

_The hell with that—-I want to eat tonight. Better do the thing._ Val squared up his shoulders and straightened himself up to his full height, “Excuse me?”

The doorman was an omwati, small and slight of build and Val could see the words catch in his throat. It honestly surprised him how being physically large and in Mandalorian armor was enough to get him through and out of a lot of things. Now of course like all Mandalorians he had a code set for himself, and he didn’t like bullies at all, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to take advantage of cutting an intimidating figure. “I—I um—see my manager—”

Val folded his arms then tapped the side of his helmet. “I can’t hear through this helmet so good. What did you say?”

“I don’t want any trouble, sir,” the Omwati seemed to shrink in front of him.

“What’s that?” Val leaned forward, “Damn helmet—what are you saying about trouble? You’re saying you want trouble? You’re gonna need to speak up, buddy.”

“I said…I said you can go right in, sir.”

Val patted the Omwati’s shoulder and headed in.

He really didn’t want to spend more time than he needed to in there. After getting past the doorman he was stopped by another one of the managers. “Hey big guy, want a drink?”

Val glanced over their head to scan across the club. He gently pushed past the manager and descended a few steps. The truth was he could hear very well through his helmet, and something about the music felt cloying on the inside of it, but then he saw her. The braids piled on her head in her bounty photo had all been shorn off, leaving a closely cropped pixie cut that looked a bit uneven in places, but it only took a slight turn of her head for him to recognize her eyes. He walked forward quickly, but not so quickly as to draw attention to himself, and sat next to her. She looked lost in thought, exhausted, and she was staring at a shot glass filled with a blue liquid in front of her. She didn’t look at him and moved to knock it back.

“Hello,” he said.

She choked, coughed, and spluttered and looked at him. Fear flashed in her eyes and she moved to scramble out of her seat but he grabbed her wrist. “I know who you are,” he said. He could see her eyes but he knew she couldn’t see his past the helmet. There was something gut-wrenching about making direct eye contact with her—-it was one thing to see big gray eyes in a holo-bounty, it was another thing completely when they were staring right at you like you were a monster, a bully, a horrible person—and he had to keep telling himself that she was a a traitor to the republic, a religious fanatic, a dangerous telekinetic wizard. “Look, I know you’re scared, and I know you’re tired. I think we can do this without causing these people any more trouble. I’m going to take you in, and the army of the Republic—I mean Empire’s going to ask you a few questions.”

She looked at him like he was an idiot, which he resented more than a little. Then she spoke with some almost-core-worlds-but-not-quite-accent that was just as birdlike as everything else he had heard coming into Lyalli. “Is that what they told you or is that what you want to believe?”

_Both?_ Val thought. He was going to speak again, but suddenly she used her free hand to grab the now-empty shot glass on the table in front of her and smash it into the side of his helmet, which did nothing, but rendered her hand a bit bloody.

“Rude,” he said, but then she grabbed another, bigger glass and smashed that into his helmet which actually managed to sufficiently stun him. Or maybe he was just stunned by the fact that she would try something that clearly didn’t work the first time again. Probably a bit of both. Her thin wrist wrenched from his grip and she was scrambling away from him and then sprinting out the door. The bartender burst out of the bathroom shouting about a witch. One of the managers was yelling about who would pay for those glasses. Val was running after her.

_Why am I doing this again?_ he thought and his stomach growled and he thought, _Right,_ and quickened his pace.

—

Aria was sprinting. It probably wasn’t wise on the not-drawing-attention-to-yourself front, but on the other hand, she was small. She had been using that to her advantage for as long as she could remember. She could disappear into crowds, she could disappear behind people. For now all that mattered was putting as much distance between herself and the bounty hunter as possible. The one good thing about Carina city was that it was a city built into various levels depending on Lyalli’s trees. If you were far away enough from the spaceport you could grab a hover-tram and take it to a different level of the city, which Aria of course did. Well… she couldn’t really go inside one—-she slipped low and fast past a line for a tram to an upper level, leaped and scrambled to the roof of a departing tram and watched as one level of Carina City shrank beneath her.

She glanced at her bloodied hand. It didn’t feel like there were any shards of glass in it. She tore the hem of her sleeve off and wrapped it around her bloodied hand and tied it off quickly and easily. Cyp said she would have made a great healer, but what was the fate of everyone back at the temple? Cyp wasn’t a warrior. Did they kill the service corps members indiscriminately with the jedi? The younglings? No, she had already lost so much sleep letting those questions plague her, she couldn’t let them distract her from escaping… whoever the hell the Mandalorian was. Her hand went at her lightsaber, which she was keeping hidden on an inner layer of her short robe. No, she couldn’t use that now. Nothing drew a whole lot of unwanted attention to you quite like a giant double-bladed bright green lightsaber.

Val was looking around when his comm started beeping. He hit a button and headed off in the direction of the trams. If he was a panicky kid, he’d pick the first thing that would put a lot of distance between himself and a bounty hunter, get slowed down in the lines for the trams.

“Blue!” a voice crackled over his comm, “You got my money, yet?”

“Working on it,” said Val, still scanning the crowd.

“I am not patient man, Blue.”

“Don’t I know it,” muttered Val, shoving through the line for the hover tram.

“What was that?!”

“I said I’ll have your money shortly, she’s just— I mean it’s right in…” Val trailed off as his eyes trailed upward, “Front of me.” His eyes narrowed as they fell on a figure huddled on top of the damn tram. “The little—”

“Blue?! Do not ignore me, Blue, or I will personally see to it that bits of you are scattered across four different star systems.”

“Korbo, I’ll have your money. I’ll call you back later.” Val clicked the comm off and swore. Did no one tell this girl how expensive jet pack fuel was? “Stand back,” he motioned to the people around him as he activated his jet pack and lifted off the ground, his mind running numerous, desperate calculations as he barreled through the air. How much would this put him back? How long could he go on an empty jet pack once this thing puttered out completely? He still had a decent amount of fuel left but he still had to maintain as straight a course as possible to conserve fuel. Once the tram seemed sufficiently beneath him, he turned the thrusters off and let gravity do the rest of the work, tucking and rolling onto the roof of the tram. The look on her face was worth it though. Didn’t see that coming, did you, kid?

Val straightened one of his gauntlets and pointed it at her, reading the whipcord. “All right kid, you’ve got spunk, I’ll give you tha–”

She pushed him. Wait, she couldn’t have pushed him, she was on the other side of the tram. That couldn’t be right. She made a pushing motion, throwing her entire body into it, which looked pretty silly since she wasn’t actually touching anything but suddenly he was shoved off his feet and flying through the air. Not flying, falling. Thankfully his hand was still on his gauntlet so it only took a quick twist and pressing down on the gauntlet’s panels to connect the grapple attachment to the whipcord and fire. The grapple caught onto the edge of the tram and he grunted as the cord pulled taught and he bounced on the end of it. He clambered up the length of the cord and gripped the edge of the tram. She was backing up, her heels at the edge of the tram. “You could have killed me!” He shouted at her. She looked at him like he was an idiot again, which got him even more angry.

“You have a jet pack,” she said before glancing over her shoulder and leaping off the edge of the tram.

“Wait–!” He shouted after her, clambering back up onto the tram’s roof. He couldn’t bring a bloody smudge on ferrocrete in for a bounty. Two seconds after she leapt, the tram made a clunking noise then an electric chime sounded, indicating that the tram had reached the upper level of Carina City and Val exhaled, detached the grapple and retracted the whipcord then ran across the length of the tram and scanned the crowd. Where was she? Don’t panic, even though all the debts you could pay off to a very big and very angry besalisk as well as a meal ticket/ship fuel/ammo for the next few weeks just ran off into a crowd and has proved very good at hiding over the past few days, don’t panic. What would Mom do in this situation? Val glanced at the rooftops that jutted out from the massive trees of Carina city. Mom would get a new perspective. It was a simple matter to find a way up there—many of Carina City’s buildings had to be fitted with powerful transceivers so that signals could make it down through Lyalli’s thick canopy, and maintaining those transceivers meant needing quick and easy rooftop access, and that meant ladders.

The buildings of Carina city more often than not were built into the trees supporting the ferrocrete platforms, rather than on the platforms themselves, which meant pretty easy maneuvering from roof to roof. The lights of the city were enough so he didn’t have to switch his helmet’s macrobinocular faceplate to night vision, however he brought down the rangefinder on his helmet’s antenna and scanned the crowd. She’s the one who should be panicking, he thought as he picked out a dark spot on the roof and brought his rifle off of his back, Not you. He sighed as he dug into one of the pockets of his belt and pulled out a small steel case and clicked it open. Tranqs were expensive, and his stomach growled again as he turned off the blast function of his rifle and loaded one of the darts into it. One dart was, what, five meals? Six? He aimed his rifle and waited.

—

Aria glanced back at the tram. Her steps had slowed and she looked around. It was getting later and the cross were dissipating. She wouldn’t be able to get lost in them in the same way as before. She looked around. Where had he gone? She knew pushing him off the tram hadn’t bought her that much time. She had to find some other exit, but the upper levels of Lyalli were either now closing storefronts or residential areas. She had cornered herself like an idiot. Maybe she could take a tram back to the lower levels of the city? Yes, stuck in a line for several minutes, that would go swimmingly. Maybe it was just a matter of—-Aria felt a sting in the back of her shoulder. She reached up and yanked out what looked like a tiny silver dart. She glanced off in the apparent direction it came from. She scanned across the rooftops and then saw something moving. She squinted. It was the Mandalorian. He was waving.

It was not the Jedi way to hate. Aria had been trained since she was a young child not to hate. As she felt the contents of the dart run cold through her veins and watched as that damned Mandalorian wave so calmly and easily, cheerfully, she would almost say, she decided she hated him. She hated him very much. And then unconsciousness enveloped her.

—-

Val shouldered his rifle and slid down the rooftop ladders to the ground, where he ran across the street to her. “Got you,” he said, squatting next to her. He put two fingers on her neck. Consistent pulse. Good. So he hadn’t just shot himself out of 10,000 credits. There was a slight crowd gathering around and he stood up, awkwardly. “Move along,” he said, before picking her up and hauling her over his shoulder, “Bounty hunter business,” he added. Something clunked to the ground beside him and he quickly bent over and picked it up. It looked like a lightsaber, but he had always imagined lightsabers being… smaller. He quickly stuffed the lightsaber into his belt and got moving. Carrying her felt tough and intimidating for all of 30 seconds until he realized how far he had chased her from his ship. He then found himself having to lug a passed out jedi over to the hover trams, wait for 20 minutes for a tram, then stand around in a crowded tram with a passed out jedi, then carry said passed out jedi across most of Carina city to his ship. 10,000 Credits, he had to keep reminding himself. Korbo’s money, plasma cartridges and other ammunition for the rifle, fuel for the ship, food. He repeated these things like a prayer as he secured the jedi on his small freighter (read: locked the jedi in a closet) and prepped his ship to meet up with an imperial contact off-world. Korbo’s money, ammunition, fuel for the ship, food.


	3. Rage of the Jedi Witch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Jedi and a Mandalorian yell at each other in an enclosed space.

"So who's Aria?" Renatus asked as Serenno came into sight.

"What?" Cyp sat up suddenly, "What do you mean 'who's Aria?'"

"I mean the girl whose name you said three times in your sleep--not that I was counting!" Renatus paused, "Okay I was counting. It gets boring at the controls. I get bored very easily."

Cyp scowled and folded his arms.

"Is she the girl at the launch pads?” Renatus persisted.

"What?"

"When you and the guardsman were digging through all the gunk in my head I think... I think I saw something in your head. It was short and it was blurry and I couldn't hear that much and at the time my own brain felt like," Renatus trailed off and brought one hand away from the controls and did a clenching and wriggling motion with his fingers, "like that in my head, only like, with a hundred more hands. But I saw a girl that you hugged. She had blonde hair and these... spooky eyes."

"Yes, that's Aria."

"Is she your girlfriend?"

Cyp flushed. "She's my _best_ friend. Or... was.” He stared at the planet as it grew larger and larger. The ship jerked slightly as they entered the atmosphere, then it seemed that heading toward was flooding their vision with fire.

“It’s autumn on Serenno right now. Very pretty,” Renatus said. The trees were gold and red and orange, catching sunlight. “So… did she die?” asked Renatus.

“I don’t know,” said Cyp.

“Well… can’t you call her?”

“I think that’s what scares me the most, honestly. Calling her and her not answering. She almost always answers. Or she used to…I don’t know. I haven’t called her since before the temple.”

“You should try it!” Renatus said.

“And say what? What if she’s…hiding and then someone hears my trying to contact her comm.? Or what if she’s already dead and I message her and the empire traces my signal back to wherever we’re hiding?”

“I said I’d hide you,” said Renatus, “There are spots in the villa where you can hide for hours. Days, maybe. Or maybe father just let the staff stop looking for me. I can never remember.”

Since first taking off with Renatus, Cyp had learned that Renatus sometimes had a habit of saying things that were very sad or very discomforting with very little thought about it. He wasn’t malicious, Cyp figured. He had been inside Renatus’s mind. Renatus was used to being able to say whatever thought popped into his head with almost no repercussions because he had gone through much of his life with almost no one to say them to, only beautiful empty halls. 

“I think you should call her,” said Renatus, “Otherwise it’s only going to eat away at you.”

Cyp pursed his lips. “It’s a terrible idea, “ he said, “Hopeless. Stupid.”

Renatus pointed to the transmitter function on the ship’s control board and focused his attention on landing the ship.

—-

Aria woke with a start on the floor of a small space. From the looks of it she had been put in a hastily emptied utility closet. There was the humming of a carbon scrubber--she was on a ship? She went to her feet and the blood rushed from her head and her vision dimmed at the edges then slumped back down to a sitting position, before bracing a hand on the wall and slowly rising to her feet. She tried the panel at the side of the door. Locked, of course. 

"I have a bad feeling about this," she said quietly. She did what any normal, rational, trained-and-disciplined-from-a-young-age Jedi would do and started banging on the door and yelling. "You can't keep me in here! This is unlawful! This is kidnapping! Open this door this instant and let me go!"

Val heard banging and yelling from the interior of the ship and sighed. He put the ship on autopilot and stood up from the controls, putting his helmet back on. The little nightmare was awake. She was still banging when he got to the door and opened the small eye slot (which was really only there because the original closet door had broken down several years ago and he had to replace it with a door he had gotten in a junkyard--this marked the first time he actually used the slot in that door, and it screeched with the sound of metal on metal when he opened it.)

"It's not unlawful. It's a bounty. This is how the law plays out in the Outer Rim."

"The law," she repeated. She was looking at him like he was an idiot again. She took a step away from the door, waved her hand and said , "Keeping me in here is unlawful."

There was something so sure and almost convincing in the way she said it. He almost believed her--no, that was dumb. His stomach growled. 10,000 credits: Korbo's money, ammunition, ship fuel, jet pack fuel, food. "N-no it isn't." There was a shake in his voice that wasn't supposed to be there. He pulled his collapsible holoscreen out of one of the pockets on his belt and unfolded it, then brought up the bounty and showed her her own picture. 

"Perfectly legal---there you are right there. Wanted by the Empire. With a ten thousand credit bounty."

She frowned at the bounty then waved a hand again. "There's been a mistake," she said.

"A mistake?" Val repeated.

She seemed encouraged by this and waved her hand again, "That is not me in the picture."

Was it not her? The girl in the picture did have long hair all done up in a crown of braids, and this girl's hair was pixie short-- no, he wouldn't use a tranq if he wasn't sure, not when one dart was five or six meals--and then there were the eyes---there was no way she wasn't the girl in the picture.

"Wh--yes it is! I'm looking right at it!" He said, "Just what are you trying to do?"

Her eyes widened and she looked frightened for a moment before shutting her eyes, taking a deep breath, then making direct eye contact with him and waving her hand and saying, "You will let me out of here and turn this ship around."

"No, no I won't," Val said, folding his arms.

She waved her hand again, "You will let me out of here and turn this ship around."

"What part of, 'You have 10,000 credits on your head,' do you not seem to grasp?"

Again, she waved her hand, "You will let me out of here and---"

"I'm not letting you out! Why do you keep doing this?" He imitated the hand gesture, "What is this?"

She didn't say anything, though at this point she did seem even more scared then suddenly it hit him.

"You were trying one of those... Mind power things! Are you seriously telling me that the Jedi mind powers everyone goes on about is just _waving!?_ "

"We call it a mind trick," she put her hands on her hips, "They're quite harmless."

"Oh yeah, 'quite harmless' all they do is let you override someone else's will."

"They only work on the weak minded and weak-willed," she said, "Obviously you have nothing to worry about."

"That isn't comforting," he said flatly, "How many people have you been using it on?"

"I've lost count."

"You've lost count?!"

"You shot me with a--a dart! My memory isn't exactly clear! And now you're going to take me to people who are going to kill me!"

"You don't know for sure they're going to ki---"

She suddenly slammed her palms on the door, causing Val to flinch back a bit, "They're going to kill me! Best case scenario they torture me to reveal the location of other Jedi which," a bitter, manic laugh shook her voice, "I don't know! But they'll keep doing it! Just to be sure! And if the torture doesn't manage to kill me then they're going to kill me and just...pop my mangled remains out to space with the rest of the garbage to float forever in the cold void! That is what you're delivering me to!"

He was glad he was wearing the helmet. He didn't want her to see his face. The Empire wouldn't just be killing all Jedi, would it? Not for something only the council did. This had to be another trick. The empire didn't put 10,000 credit bounties on scared kids for nothing. She's a wizard. A manipulator. She said so herself she had been using those mind tricks for days without a second thought. Val straightened his shoulders, "Look... Arian-win---"

"No one calls me that. Call me Aria."

 _Yeah sure lets call you a cute nickname. "_...Kid," he said flatly.

"I'm a Jedi. I'm not a kid."

"How old are you?"

"21."

"You're a kid," Val sighed, "You don't know that--"

"I can feel it," there was a shake in her voice again, like she hadn't said this before, like she didn't want to say it, like saying it made it real somehow, "I see it in dreams. I feel them snuffing out one by one like candles when l lay down at night. They're dying out there. The people I grew up with. The people who taught me everything I know. They're dying alone and afraid and in pain." Her big gray eyes were wet. Val bit his lip. "You feel it too," she said quietly, "the Galaxy is getting smaller, darker, lonelier---no adventure or joy of freedom or discovery. Only running, barely sleeping, being forced to do things that make you feel further and further away from---"

Val smacked the door this time, his stomach twisting in knots. The noise made Aria flinch back slightly. "Don't think you can manipulate me!"

"I wasn't trying to manipulate you!” she seemed genuinely insulted by this accusation.

"Sure thing, Jedi Witch," he said walking away. He had to get back to the ship controls.

"Don't you walk away from me! Don't you dare! You can't do this! They'll kill me! _You're_ killing me! You--..." she started kicking at and banging on the door with her fists. "Filthy bantha-kriffer! When I get out of here. You'll be kriffing sorry! You haven't seen any of my mind powers yet! I'll melt your kriffing brain out your ears if you don't let me out!"

 _What the fuck is 'kriff?'_ thought Val as he took a seat back at the controls. She kept yelling and kicking at the door as Val sat down in his chair and regretted not having the foresight to soundproof a closet. Look on the bright side, he thought to himself, There's no way someone her size can maintain yelling and banging around like that for too long. She's bound to tucker out soon.

—

Five hours. No bounty was worth this. Five hours straight she had been yelling, kicking the door, and generally being as big a headache as she possibly could. She knew exactly what she was doing, too. When she was knocked out he had been able to push her from his mind, reduce her to a pile of credits and a sick feeling in his stomach. Like this she wasn’t just on his nerves, she was under his skin. It just kept hitting him over and over again that it was a freaking kid in there because only a kid would pull shit like this. It was hard for him to envision her as a dangerous powerful telekinetic space wizard because he didn’t imagine dangerous powerful telekinetic space wizards throwing five hour tantrums.

At hour two and a half he had given some thought to going back there and knocking her out again, but then he figured that was probably exactly what she wanted: he would open the door, try and stun her with his blaster rifle, and she’d use those Jedi powers to get the drop on him—someone her size had to be well adapted to close-quarters combat. And for all he knew she was right to. He didn’t know what fate he was delivering her to by delivering her to the Empire—-all he had known was that the Empire was paying more for Jedi to be delivered alive. He glanced at the small icon of Satine Kryze that his mother insisted he keep on the left hand corner of the ship’s viewport so that they would always be at the right hand of the Duchess and muttered, “Don’t look at me like that.”

The kid had taken to yelling in different languages for the past two hours, mostly Huttese, Lya (the Omwati bastard tongue of Lyalli), and Pak Pak, though for a second he thought he heard some Togruti in there. It would have been impressive if he wasn’t pretty sure that she wasn’t yelling the worst insults she could think of in every tongue she could manage. Her pronunciation was actually pretty good, at least from what Val knew from his time among other smugglers. He had always thought Jedi usually had the money and resources to have a protocol droid on hand for that sort of thing. Once she seemed to have exhausted most of her multilingual insults, she switched back to Basic. Val glanced at his hyperdrive control. He had been avoiding going into hyperspace as much as possible because of how fast it burned through his fuel reserves, but he decided no amount of fuel in his tank was worth another several hours of ‘kriffing motherkriffer,’ let the computer calculate a course for the nearest Imperial outpost, then hit the hyperdrive. As the stars stretched to beams of light around the ship he suddenly heard a crackle. He glanced over at the bag he had been keeping the jedi’s stuff in. She had travelled light—-only a transmitter and a lightsaber. Letting the calculations guide the ship, he reached over and grabbed the bag, reaching past the lightsaber to pull out the transmitter. _Of course,_ he thought to himself, _transmitters can only receive holos from a planet or in hyperspace._ He clicked it open.

 _“Aria? It’s Cyp. I’m okay. I’m alive. If you get this, I’m on Serenno with three of the younglings. The rest of them…”_ he trailed off, _“If you get this, please call me back. May the Force be with you.”_

The holo ended and something tugged on the corner of Val’s mouth. _I should turn it off,_ he thought to himself, but he kept watching. The freckled boy appeared again.

 _“Ignore that last Holo. The younglings need a teacher, Aria—- I know Master Obi-Wan said we needed to be secret but we can’t just—-they can’t go back to their parents, Aria—-the Empire’s been arresting families at random I know it has to be their families in case they missed anyone at the—-”_ he choked and sniffled, _“At the temple. They’re tracking down Jedi any way they can. I’m risking everything just trying to contact you but—please be alive, Aria. Please be okay.”_

The holo ended and again, the freckled boy popped up. He was sobbing this time. This must have been the holo he told her to ignore.

_“I love you Aria. I should have told you on the launchpad.”_

“Shit,” Val muttered, taking off his helmet and running a hand through his hair but the hologram carried on and he watched it like it was a ship burning and exploding across the atmosphere.

 _“I never should have let you go—-”_ the freckled boy scoffed, _“I say that as if I could stop you. I should have told you. I should have told you that you were the reason I could never go through with the trials. Why I decided I could never be a Jedi—because there would always be this—this thing, this person, this brilliant, mad, person that I could never detach myself from. That I would never want to. You are my greatest and dearest friend, Aria. Whatever happens—whatever has happened to you—May the Force be with you.”_

The next message played.

 _“She’s not answering,”_ the boy with wavy hair was saying.

 _“Well she’s probably out of range or on a ship that’s not in hyperspace. You know how transmitters are,”_ a voice out of view from the holo spoke, _“Leave a message.”_

Val skipped through that message. He figured it was more or less a repeat of the first message he had heard, that Sip or whatever his name was was on Serenno, that there were younglings, that she needed to call back and the Force should be with her. He checked the timestamps on them. They had been sent since Val had first taken off from Lyalli. Then he saw there was an older message. The transmitter’s record reported that it was a little over a five days old had been played over 400 times. He knew he should turn the transmitter off, throw it away, destroy it maybe and pretend he had never heard any of the messages on it, but he hit ‘play’ on the message and the hologram of a man who looked completely different from the freckled boy popped up. 

_“This is Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.”_ Val suddenly glanced up at the icon of Duchess Satine. He had heard of the Jedi Master in Mandalore’s holonews—-usually described as some terrible trumped-up bodyguard of the duchess threatening Mandalore’s neutrality, but here he seemed significantly less…terrible. And the duchess had trusted him. Whether he had failed horribly to save her, that counted for something, didn’t it? He just looked like a not-quite middle-aged man. _“I regret to report that both our Jedi Order and the Republic have fallen with the dark shadow of the Empire rising to take their place. This message is a warning and a reminder for any surviving Jedi: Trust in the Force. Do not return to the temple. That time has passed and our future is uncertain. Avoid Coruscant. Avoid detection. Be secret, but be strong. We will each be challenged: our trust, our faith, our friendships. But we must persevere, and in time I believe a new hope will emerge. May the Force be with you, always.”_

Val clicked off the transmitter and set it aside. That didn’t sound like a fascist religious fanatic giving instructions on how they would survive a failed coup. It sounded like a desperate man trying to keep the last shreds of a noble order from falling apart in the midst of a slaughter. If there was a coup there was no way a Jedi positioned in the outer rim would know about it. 400 times. The kid had played the hologram 400 times. Why? _I feel them snuffing out at night like candles,_ her voice popped into his head. It must have been all she had, the only explanation she had for why the empire was after her, the only thing she had to remind her of everyone and everything she had known before.

10,000 credits: Korbo’s money, ship fuel, jet pack fuel, ammunition, food. There was food on Serenno. A good enough hiding place would have to have food. It wouldn’t be a good hiding place if it didn’t have fuel, either—it’s not a good hiding place if you can’t leave it quickly. Ammunition—there’s no way the former heartland of the Separatists wouldn’t have a ton of ammo lying around. There was money on Serenno—he could run a security job for one of the counts, they always needed extra muscle. No, 10,000 credits. Don’t be an idiot. Don’t be soft. That’s how you got into this mess with Korbo in the first place. You’ve already wasted enough time and resources getting her, there was no sense in stopping now. He put his helmet on then suddenly paused. The yelling and the banging had stopped. How long ago had she stopped yelling and banging around? He swore and got to his feet. The ship shuddered and came out of hyperspace and he set it on autopilot again, walking quickly back to the closet.

“Kid?” he opened the small slot leading into the closet. She was gone. 

“Oh this is bad,” he said, backing away from the door and rushing back to the cockpit. He grabbed the bag with the jedi’s lightsaber and transmitter in it, then grabbed his blaster rifle and set it on stun. He was about to set off to search the ship for her when the ship suddenly jerked and he had to brace himself on a doorframe.

“You’d better not be messing around with my ship, or you’ll be sorry!” he shouted, not exactly sure where to shout at. The vents. She was small. She had to have taken to the vents. The ship jerked again and he ran back to the cockpit. There had to be something wrong with the autopilot or—-the ship was caught in a tractor beam. Val glanced out the viewport to see a Baleen-class heavy freighter. “Oh no…” Val said quietly.


	4. Baby on Board

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Jedi and a Mandalorian continue to yell at each other while being shot at. What happens next will warm your heart.

Aria had only been scrambling around in the vents for a few minutes until the ship started jerking around. She bumped her head on the ceiling of the vent and grunted. She had to find her lightsaber. The ship jerked again and suddenly there was the sound of the life-support powering down and large metallic groans. Aria suddenly remembered—-the Mandalorian had a helmet, or at least knew where emergency oxygen apparatus on the ship was. She didn’t. The Mandalorian could survive turning the life-support off on the ship—she couldn’t—not inside a vent, at least. He kept proving himself smarter than her previous assumptions. She could still do this—she just had less time now. The escape pods on a freighter like this would have to have independently functioning life support. She just had to find them and—-there was an additional metallic thump of the ship’s landing gear unfolding.

She heard footsteps running down the ship’s corridors and silently watched through a grate as the Mandalorian raced underneath her, swearing all the while. She heard the entry ramp lowering. Well that meant escape pods were out of the question. The ship hadn’t moved the way a ship would entering a planet’s atmosphere. She crawled over one of the grates and kneed it out, then grabbed it before it fell and set it on the inside of the vent before slipping out herself and landing almost soundlessly on the floor of the ship. Exit. She had to find an exit. She headed toward a light source and found the entry ramp, but she heard voices from outside the ship. It was hard to tell from the angle she was at in the ship, but they appeared to be in some sort of garage or maybe a shipping yard. She inched around the entry ramp, careful to stay out of sight, then got low to listen to what was going on outside the ship.

—-

Korbo was waiting for him outside the ship. The besalisk was standing between two of his most trusted lieutenants: the Balosar Gaal Falku’si and the Iktotchi Urusae Nors.

“Korbo,” said Val, shouldering his blaster rifle and heading down the entry ramp.

“Blue,” Korbo said warmly, “You haven’t been answering your calls, boy. I get worried.”

“No need to worry,” Val said, putting his hands up, “I’ll have your money soon.”

“Soon?” Korbo glanced at Gaal and Urusae, “Last time I called you said you were looking right at it.”

“Oh! Yes—-well, I was…” Val cleared his throat, “It’s a bit complicated. I have in my possession something worth a lot of credits, but unless you let me go and get to my destination, we’ll both be missing a lot of money, and no one wants that, do they?”

“I grow very tired of your excuses and delays, Blue,” said Korbo, motioning to his lieutenants, “I’ll send my regards to your mother and Maz.”

“Wait!” Val put his hands up, Val’s stomach wouldn’t stop twisting in knots. “Look, Korbo, I have a proposition for you.”

“A proposition—the kid thinks he has something to offer me!”

Val did his best not to shrink in the face of the laughter before saying, “It’s a bounty. The thing I’m carrying is a bounty, and this bounty I’m carrying? It’s worth a lot.”

“How much?” Korbo demanded.

“A _lot_ a lot.”

Korbo said something in Ojom to his lieutenants and Val heard the high-pitched sounds of blasters warming up then blurted out, “10,000 credits— but I’ve been with this bounty for a while now and I get to thinking: why would the empire put such a high bounty on some scared kid? And I realize: of course the empire wants this kid– they don’t want someone with this kid’s powers in any hands but their own. 10,000 credits is just a smokescreen, yeah? Imagine being able to go through imperial checkpoints with just a wave of the hand—imagine being able to just talk someone out of searching your cargo. The bounty I’m carrying is worth 50,000 credits, at least, to whatever smuggler has the choobies to handle her– and I can handle her.”

—

Sitting on the interior of the ship and listening to the whole thing, Aria quietly scoffed at the Mandalorian’s ‘choobies’ comment, but then she paused. By the sound of it, he didn’t want to send her to the Empire. But that hardly made any sense– why would he change his mind? Risking being seen, Aria stuck her head out of the the ship. Most everyone’s attention seemed to be on the Mandalorian, apparently called ‘Blue.’ Why would his name be ‘Blue?’ His armor was bronze and red with a yellow scarf. His armor was the opposite of blue.

“Explain,” Korbo said.

“You don’t need to be a genius to know what this is,” said Blue, pulling something out of his bag. Korbo squinted. Aria’s eyes widened and her brow furrowed. Of course he had the damned nerve to pull out her lightsaber. He wasn’t even holding it right. _Have fun stabbing yourself you stupid spacer,_ she thought.

“Need another hint?” Blue hit a button on the lightsaber and nothing happened. Aria rested her forehead in her hand. All he had done was put the lightsaber in training mode. Blue cleared his throat awkwardly and hit a different button, which activated the lightsaber. Blue swore and changed his grip as the second blade turned on. “My bounty is a Jedi,” said Blue.

“Empire’s paying a lot of money for Jedi, boss,” Gaal said, elbowing Korbo. Korbo gave a snarl and the balosar shrunk back, his antennae flattening slightly.

“But you could make more money with a Jedi on your crew,” Blue insisted.

“Blue, let me tell you a story—-”

“I know the story, Korbo, and I’m gratefu—-” Blue fell silent at the sound of blasters warming up again.

“My old boss, he always said ‘In our line of work, Korbo, you must remember these three things: Money is not money until it is credits in your hand, have a plan to kill everyone you meet, and never do business with a Mandalorian.’ I broke two of those rules for you, Blue. For six years you were a smart investment— taught by Myri Felov herself, could shoot the wings off a Bacian blood hornet from 800 meters, smart, maybe too smart for your own good, but a good worker. 6 years I think my old boss is wrong—-Until we get to the Zygerrian job.”

“You could have stood to mention that the ‘Zygerrian job’ was smuggling slaves,” there was an anger in Blue’s voice that Aria hadn’t heard yet.

“What did you _think_ you would be smuggling out of Zygerria? Fresh fruit?” Korbo spat, “You set my shipment loose across 6 different systems. I lose my Zygerrian contact and can never do business on that planet again—”

Aria covered her mouth and shrank back inside the ship still listening to the conversation.

“And if you had just listened—-if you would just _listen_ we’d have contacts and fences in 6 different systems!” Blue shot back, “We could expand the operation planet-side and—-”

“You cheated me out of 8,000 credits by going soft, Blue. And now you come to me cheating yourself and me out of 10,000 credits and for what? Some jedi scum?” Korbo spat then sighed, “You disappoint me, Blue. Six years was a good run, though, wasn’t it?” He folded two of his arms then motioned to Gaal and Urusae with the other two. “Kill him and find me the Jedi. If you’re not going to grab at 10,000 credits, I will.”

Aria slipped back into the ship’s interior then, not wanting to be seen as Korbo approached the ship.

—

_Well, shit_ , thought Val as he un-slung his rifle from his shoulder and vaulted over a crate in a hail of blaster fire and ducked behind it. He quickly stuck up and fired some retaliatory fire, but bit his lip as several blue rings burst out from the edge of his rifle rather than the usual deadly red blasts. He ducked down to avoid further blaster fire. “Gaal?” He heard Urusae, then a shout, “Are you serious, Blue?” Of course—he still had it set on stun for the stupid Jedi kid. The kid—- What the hell would Korbo do to her if he found her? What would she do? Val peeked back over the crates to make sure Gaal was downed. He had a couple minutes at most before Gaal came back, but Urusae fired at him with his twin blasters and Val ducked down again and set his blaster rifle back to ‘kill.’ He heard the click and crackle of a transmitter. “We need backup in docking. We’re finally getting rid of the stinking Mandalorian.”

_Stinking? You hang out with Korbo all day and you call me ‘stinking?’_

—

Aria scrambled for a hiding spot as Korbo made his way up the entry ramp. She had the Force on her side, but the Force only took you so far against a really really, really big besalisk. Plus, without her lightsaber, she didn’t have much of a chance against someone wielding four blasters at once. She ran into the cockpit and began fumbling around for any weapon the mandalorian might keep at close hand aside from his blaster rifle, but lifting one of the panels she found only a small tool box. An idea suddenly flashed to her mind and she grabbed a wrench then ran to the closet where she had been kept earlier. She put her hand on the door and closed her eyes, inhaled and exhaled. She walked into the closet that she had been locked in for who knew how long.

“Where are you, little Jedi?” Korbo’s voice came down the hall and Aria waited for a second, then threw the wrench against the wall of the closet, then leapt up into the open vent and scrambled back up into it desperately crawling forward until she reached the second grate. She watched as Korbo quickly moved beneath the vent and fired into the closet, blue light bursting from his blasters. Aria frowned. Well, at least he was firing on ‘stun’ but he seemed pretty set on taking her to the empire, so getting stunned might as well be a death sentence. “You think you can hide from me?” Korbo said, walking into the closet. “I know all of Blue’s little hiding spots in this rust bucket.”

Aria dropped down out of the other vent grate she had kneed out and watched as Korbo lifted up a panel in the floor of the closet with a, “Ha!” then a frown. He caught her in the corner of his eye and pointed a blaster at her. She slammed the door shut as he squeezed the trigger and she put a hand over the locking panel, locking the door. She could hear him shouting and banging on the door, and the door itself was shaking and the locking mechanism itself was heating up as blaster fire was screeching on the interior of the closet—-it wouldn’t hold him long, she realized.

Aria sprinted for the entry ramp only to hear the screech of blasters. Something in her sickened and shrank and suddenly her mind was scrambling itself with the memories she knew were days old. The Jedi temple had trained her for battles, never what came after. Never the nightmares or the grief and fear that stuck around, that wouldn’t go away with all the time and meditation in the galaxy. She felt her chest tightening. She couldn’t breathe—-no, she could breathe. Control your breath, count if you must. You have your training. You can survive this. She ran out of the ship and the fire turned on her and she leapt and ducked behind several crates.

“You!” she heard a voice then glanced up and saw Blue, shrinking behind a large pile of crates, “Where the hell have you been?”

“Give me my lightsaber,” said Aria.

“What? No!” said Blue.

Aria peeked over the crates to see several more of Korbo’s henchman arriving from different wings of the ship. “They’ll flank us in seconds. You’ll need more than boxes to cover you. Give me my lightsaber.”

“And how do I know you won’t just stab me with it?”

“The same reason you’re not shooting me in the head right now, or stunning me.”

“The reason why I’m not shooting you is because there’s 10,000 credits on your head, alive.”

“See I think it’s the same reason why you owe this ‘Korbo’ money in the first place.”

“I don’t have time to discuss fucking motivations! If you’re a Jedi, why don’t you just take it?” he said, going up to a sitting position and laying down some suppressing fire.

“Neither of us is getting out of here on our own and you know that. There needs to be trust.” said Aria. Her eyes widened as she saw several of Korbo’s henchmen moving along to an exposed side of the crates, “They’re flanking—” Aria started to say, then suddenly felt cold metal in her hand.

“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” said Blue. Aria adjusted the lightsaber out of training mode then hit the activator plate. Green light emerged from either side of the lightsaber. Blue glanced over to their right where the other henchmen had been flanking them and fired a few blasts over there to send them behind crates for cover.

“Depends,” said Aria, standing up and running toward the henchmen shooting at them.

—-

Val’s head was buzzing. The jedi apparently didn’t need much convincing and was running into full on blaster fire with little hesitation. She had her blade in front of her and was reflecting blaster fire aimed directly at her with simple, swift movements, sending it flying off in random directions, one lucky shot even striking one of Korbo’s henchmen (What was that guy’s name again? Krokus?) in the chest and knocking him down and forcing the rest to take cover. Val did his best to add in some more suppressing fire behind her but her movements were so fast he was a little scared of hitting her. As she closed the distance between herself and Korbo’s band, she motioned with her hand at one of the crates and it lifted up as if possessed, then with a swiping movement she sent it barreling toward them forcing them to briefly cease fire and scramble out of the way as the crate crashed among them, knocking two of them over. In the midst of this confusion the Jedi leapt higher than any human had any business leaping and came down with her foot on a pantoran’s face and a broad sweeping slash of her saberstaff rending a raised blaster into two useless pieces before running him through with one of the green blades. It was a little terrifying, actually, she was a little terrifying.

_I could have died,_ he thought to himself, laying down some more cover fire to the henchmen still entrenched directly across from his crates and managing to take out Aerod before the return fire sent him ducking back down again, _I could have died so many times._

Val saw Basco leap down toward her, only for her to stick an arm out and do that same sweeping motion, slamming the Terrellian into the wall while while he was still several feet up. Well, considering how light Basco was, that wasn’t as impressive as what she had done with the crate earlier, or her throwing him off the tram back on Lyalli. The freighter’s alarms were blaring now. Yxa had her gun aimed at the jedi, the jedi was distracted. Val squeezed the trigger of his own rifle and Yxa was downed and suddenly Val was vaulting over the crates and running toward the Jedi, watching as red blasts whizzed past as he ran.

He leapt down next to the jedi, who was establishing that that front of henchman were all either dead or otherwise incapacitated.

“There’s more coming,” he said, “We can take the lull in the action to get back to my ship and—”

_And what? I was low on fuel already. How far can we get before—-_

“About your ship—-” said the Jedi.

There was a roar of, “BLUE!” And the Jedi suddenly tackled him from the waist to fall behind another line of crates, as a hail of red blasts and blue rings shot overhead. Well wherever the Jedi had stuck Korbo, he had somehow gotten himself out—-wait, Korbo was coming from his ship. What the hell had the kid done?

“Is he even distinguishing whether he wants me alive or dead anymore?” the Jedi said, sitting up and unsheathing her lightsaber and taking point as Val rested his rifle on some the crates and stayed low.

“Kill for me, stun for you,” said Val, _Probably not that hard to distinguish with your height._ He laid down some suppressing blasts, knocking one blaster out of Korbo’s four hands and forcing Korbo back behind his ship’s entry ramp for cover. “Come on!” Val grabbed her wrist and yanked her away into a sprint to a corridor leading out of the docking area. Several blue rings of a blaster’s stun hit the wall and dissolved into crackling sparks behind her.

“Where are we going?!” she demanded as they ran down the corridor.

“If we’re going to make it out of here, we’re going to need fuel and credits,” said Val. His stomach growled. “And food if we can find it.”

“And what if Korbo sabotages your ship?”

“He tries not to damage things that he knows he can make a profit off of. He’ll want as much money out of me dead as possible. He’ll have it guarded, definitely, and he’ll try and flush us out from these corridors.”

“Hm,” She nodded at this, “And do you have any counter-measures planned?”

“I’ll…run and shoot?” Val said, stopping at one door leading into one of the ship’s countless shipping container sections. Korbo had simply written ‘Dathomir Shipment to Tatooine—Regards to Jabba’ on the manifest holoscreen outside of it. Dathomir to Tatooine, that had to mean some nasty weapons, right? Some ammo, at least… It was a shipment to a Hutt, what else could it be?

“That isn’t a plan,” said the Jedi.

“Well you’re the super-tactician Jedi Knight—” Val started fiddling around with the codes on the panel, using the passcodes he knew Korbo used the most.

“Consular.”

“What?”

“Jedi Consular. It’s the same rank but different duty as Jedi Knights. We aren’t as…militant.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” said Val, as he activated the panel then opened the door, heard snarling, squinted into the dark of the container then immediately closed it again, “Moving. We are moving very quickly away.”

“What was in there?”

“Rancor pup.”

“What?”

Val was already moving swiftly down the corridor and the Jedi had to walk almost twice as briskly to keep up with him.

“Blue—-” the Jedi started.

“Don’t call me Blue.”

“Korbo called you ‘Blue.’”

“Korbo’s an ass. Call me Val.”

“Does that mean you’re going to start calling ‘Aria?’”

“Kid, don’t push your luck, you’re still worth 10,000 credits to the empire.”

“You didn’t turn in those Zygerrian slaves for a profit,” There was almost a smile in her voice as Val feverishly moved from one shipping container to the next, scanning the holo-manifests next to them. Empty, empty, empty—-no wonder Korbo was riding his ass so hard for the money he owed. Val wondered how much credibility his stunt had cost Korbo. A part of him wished they were all empty—that Korbo would never move one shipment from one horrible person to the next again because of that stunt, but on the other hand he really, really needed fuel and credits.

“That was different— it wasn’t their fault the Zygerrians had them all rounded up and—”

“And it’s my fault the Empire is after me?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know you.” Val started walking faster. His legs were longer and she was forced to walk even faster.

“You don’t _want_ to know,” she said, then she trailed off, it was more like she was talking to herself than him. “Most professional bounty hunters study their target long before they start their pursuit—makes it easier to predict their actions and counteract them.”

“And how would you know that?” he said, irritated.

“Master Tera Sinube sometimes lectured us,” she said as if he would know who that is. He felt her eyes on him as he moved from shipping container to shipping container, then she finally said, “You’re not a bounty hunter at all, are you? You’re a smuggler, like Korbo.”

“I’m _not_ like Korbo!“ Val suddenly whirled on his heel and was looking at her. She didn’t have that same rage and fear in her eyes as earlier. Why not? Didn’t she understand people were coming to kill them?

“I agree,” she said. Something like a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth and Val felt his stomach drop. Just what kind of game was she playing?

“Don’t do that,” Val said.

“Don’t do what?”

“Anything,” he said, turning around. He heard boots banging down metal grate and then muttered, “Great—Come on,” he broke back into a run and she followed close behind as the sound of running and shouting grew behind them. He glanced up at the chalk arrows that various smugglers had drawn at various intersections around the maze of corridors and took a sharp right.

“There you are you traitor bastard!” Brorser was around one of the corners and Aria reacted quickly, drawing her lightsaber but not lighting it, she smacked him in the face with the lightsaber’s hilt and dealt a sturdy kick to his stomach, which…actually didn’t do much but by that point he had been stunned enough for Val to pull his rifle off his shoulder and shoot him. Val suddenly stopped and glanced at the holo-manifest next to the container Brorser had been guarding. He read the manifest: Gorse to Geonosis—-EXTREME CAUTION. BABY ON BOARD.

“Baby?” Aria repeated, squinting at the manifest, but Val was already opening the shipping container.

“Baradium Bisulfate,” said Val, stepping inside.

Aria blinked, “He’s keeping a baby rancor and Baradium Bisulfate on the _same ship!?”_

“See this is why I take offense at you comparing me to Korbo,” said Val, easing along the barrels of the highly explosive compound, “I’m not an idiot—-However if he’s got a shipment of Baby on board, that means this crate must have been hijacked from the mining guild which means…” Val’s breath caught in his throat and he rushed past the baradium bisulfate to several large tanks of something with Bocce scrawled on the side. “There are miracles in this universe,” he said, dropping to his knees.

“You saw me moving objects with my mind. Of course there—-”

“No, I mean look,” Val held up a large tank, “This is Clouzon-36.”

“Great!” Aria said brightly.

“You don’t know what Clouzon-36 is,” said Val.

“Not at all, no.”

“It’s worth its weight in gold—-well actually no, because it’s a gas—it’s worth it’s volume in gold. Best hyperspace fuel in the galaxy.”

“So we need to get this back to your ship,” said Aria.

“Yeah.”

“Without dying.”

“Yeah.”

“Or blowing ourselves up. Well I suppose it’s a start for a plan—-Don’t touch that!” Aria said as Val reached into one of the smaller crates labeled BABY—USE EXTREME CAUTION and pulled out a small ceramic block.

“It’s just some insurance. I know what I’m doing,” Val said, tucking the block into one of the pockets on his belt, “We may actually get out of this,” he said, grabbing two canisters of Clouzon-36 and tucking them into the bag where he was originally keeping Aria’s lightsaber.

“And go where?” Aria asked.

“Serenno,” said Val, not even thinking.

“Serenno?” Aria repeated.

“Oh!” Val dug into the bag, “Your transmitter—” he pulled out the small transmitter, “You got messages—some guy named Kip or something.”

“Cyp!?” Aria’s eyes lit up and shined with wetness, “He’s alive?” her voice cracked.

“Yeah here,” Val held out the transmitter to her but suddenly red blaster fire knocked it right out of his hand. Both he and Aria screamed at the red flash, expecting to be consumed in an inferno of exploding Baradium Bisulfate, but Aria threw her hands up and the blaster fire froze in mid air, a thick, ragged slash of red light. Aria was just as surprised as he was. She looked at Val and Val looked out the door of the shipping container to one of Korbo’s henchmen.

“Alkaid!” Val said, pressing his hands to the side of his head and looking at the henchman, “Do you have any idea what you could have just done!? It’s _baradium_ , you idiot!” Val glanced over at Aria, her hands still extended toward the beam of red light, beads of sweat running down her temples. As miraculous as it was, keeping the blaster fire frozen in mid air was clearly taking a lot of her. “We need to get out of here,” her voice was quiet.

Alkaid looked just as shocked as they did.

“Kaid,” Val said, holding up his rifle, “You’re going to listen to me or all of us are going to die a horrible fiery explosive death. We’re going to step outside of the shipping container and close the door. The airlock might be enough to keep the explosion to the exterior of the ship. We’re stepping out now. Ready, kid? Keep it up. Keep it up a bit longer.”

Aria nodded and a bead of sweat dropped from her jawbone. Her nose was bleeding. They moved slowly, Val with his rifle on Alkaid, Alkaid with his gun on Val, Aria, walking backwards with her hands extended toward the suspended blaster fire. The two of them walked out of the shipping container and Val smacked the panel, closing the door. Alkaid kept his gun aimed on Val. Aria was leaning on him at this point, her knees shaking as she kept her arms extended and eyes closed, still facing the shipping container.

“K-Korbo wants you alive, Blue,” said Alkaid, “Wants to kill you himsel—”

“Hold onto something,” Aria said.

“What?” said Alkaid.

Aria’s arms dropped down and then there was the screech of blaster fire then a roaring sound from the inside of the shipping container. Val shouldered one of her arms and braced himself against the wall as the doors blew off the shipping container and reduced Alkaid to a blackened smudge on the wall. “Run,” Aria was saying, “Run…”

He was half-dragging her as the vacuum of space tore at the buckled door. He half leapt half-fell past one of Korbo’s blast doors and scrambled to hit the panel next to it. He could see the entire hallway he had just been in be torn away by fire and the vacuum as it disappeared behind the closing blast doors. At least Korbo had been smart enough to place that shipment container so strategically. Aria was crumpled on the floor, pressing her hands to her forehead.

“Ari—Kid…you okay?” he glanced over at her.

“Nnh…don’t know yet…”

“Can you run?” He held a hand out to her. She took his hand and he brought her, staggering, to her feet. The hallway was turning on its side. The force of the blast must have knocked the entire freighter’s equilibrium off. He started walking on the walls with her, which were now technically the floor.

“Didn’t know you could do that,” he said, as he slung her arm over his shoulder and briskly started moving down the hall, her feet trying to keep up but sometimes just dragging against the metal grate floor.

“I don’t…think I’m supposed to,” she said, she still had a hand on her forehead.

“You got a little…” Val pointed underneath his nose (Or the rough approximation of underneath his nose with the helmet on) and she wiped the blood away. “Come on.” He hurried through the corridors. They had the fuel. They had to get back to the ship now. “Wait,” he glanced up to see the arrows were no longer on the ceiling. One of the hallways had been rendered a deep chasm by the ship turning on its side. He clicked the grapple attachment onto his whipcord and held onto Aria tightly as he rappelled down to the other corridor. The freighter was slowly righting itself and by the next time they had to make a turn, it was more of a difficult uphill slope. He was half-tuning out the blaring of the alarms and the announcements of which sections of the ship had lost life support. “Here,” he said, he glanced over at Aria, who was on the verge of passing out, “It’s not over yet, kid, stay with me,” he said, shaking her slightly, “Tell me how you stopped that blaster bolt.”

“You said Cyp was alive…” Aria’s head was lolling a bit. She suddenly shut her eyes and squinted, “I…I can’t die here.”

“Yeah, he’s alive,” said Val as she pushed off of him and stood, wobbling slightly on her own feet. “We’re going to make it to Serenno—-”

“There you are! What did you do!?” Three of Korbo’s crew, Val couldn’t even be bothered to remember their names this time, were heading toward them. Val glanced down to see a familiar Holo-Manifest on the wall/floor. Dathomir to Tatooine. Regards to Jabba. “Blast them!” A Zabrak woman at the forefront pointed at them and Aria unsheathed her lightsaber and moved to start deflecting the shots as Val dropped to one knee and desperately typed a passcode into the holo-manifest. The door slid open and Val and Aria leapt over the door, Aria deflecting blaster shots with her lightsaber, Val barely making any combative moves as they shoved past the Zabrak and her compatriots. “Come back here you…” she paused at the sound of snarling behind her, “…coward…” she turned on her heel to see white teeth glistening with drool.

Val and Aria weren’t looking behind them as they ran. They only barely heard the sound of claws rending and teeth snapping bones. Finally, they made it back out to the docking bay of the freighter. The ship had righted itself and the floor was solid beneath their feet. Val was right. Korbo had been waiting. Val’s eyes fell on the ship—well out of the range of potential blaster fire in the would-be firefight. Good.

Korbo stood up and walked to the forefront of a group of what Val estimated to be about two-dozen of his crew. Val suddenly handed the bag with the Clouzon-36 canisters over to Aria.

“Sheathe your lightsaber Jedi, Or I shoot him in the head,” Korbo said, raising his blasters at Val. Aria looked to Val, exhausted but defiant, and Val nodded his head. “Do it,” he said. Aria deactivated her lightsaber. “Stay behind me,” said Val turning toward her so that his left side was out of Korbo’s view, his hand going into the pocket on his belt and pulling out the small ceramic block. “It’s going to be okay, Kid.” He took her hand in what looked like a comforting move, but she felt him press the block into her palm. He leaned foreward and kissed her on the temple, or at least it would have been a kiss if he wasn’t wearing a helmet. He clicked off the voice amplifier on his helmet. “When I say throw, throw, then duck,” he whispered. Val then looked toward Korbo and brought his hand up.

Korbo was holding two of his blasters in two of his hands, and clapping with his other pair of hands. “A valiant effort, Blue. If only you could have shown such ingenuity in my service.

“Korbo, I’ve already put enough of a dent in your profits. Let us go and we won’t have to hurt any more of your men.” Val clicked his helmet’s voice amplifier on again.

“Why do you keep thinking you are in a position to bargain!?”

“Guess I’m a slow learner. Throw.”

Aria threw the ceramic block and Korbo shouted. Val moved his rifle into position as the small block flew through the air toward Korbo and his crew. Korbo fired. Val felt something bite into his side. He squeezed the trigger just as the force of the blast threw him off his feet. The pain in his side seemed to slow everything down. Aria’s mouth was opening, his weight was falling against her. The beam of red light hit the little ceramic block and suddenly Korbo and his entire defensive line were consumed in fire. Aria stepped to his side and threw her hands up as the force of the blast sent them tumbling across the floor of the docking bay.

—

Aria’s ears were ringing and her vision was blurred at the edges. Her brain had already felt like rubber stretched to its limit and snapped back after what she had done with the blaster bolt, but keeping the worst of the blast off of them had to have been worth it, even if it felt like her head was about to split open now. She stumbled to her knees and saw Val a ways away from her and scrambled over. His helmet had been knocked off. His eyes were closed. The tip of his yellow scarf was on fire. She stamped it out with her foot. She looked at his face. He had a gash under one eye but otherwise no visible sign of concussion. She frowned—-he had no right to calling her kid this entire time when he could only be a few years older than her. His skin was medium olive-brown with dark eyebrows and stubbly cheeks and a goatee. Her eyes fell on his hair and she huffed a little, “So that’s why they call you ‘Blue.’”

He coughed and groaned and his eyes opened, and she exhaled with some relief, then gasped as she looked down at the wound in his side. She checked her bag. The canisters of Clouzon-36 had remained undamaged. She looked up. There was fire and scorched marks everywhere, but the Baby had blasted away Korbo’s last forces. “Okay, come on,” she said, looking around then grabbing Val’s helmet. She hauled Val to his feet and brought his arm over her shoulder as he had done for her earlier, supporting no small amount of his weight.

“Stop,” she heard a voice behind her and turned. Korbo was there. Three of his arms were gone, torn off, the stubs cauterized in the blast. In his last hand he was pointing a blaster at them.

“I am not letting 10,000 credits fly out of my shi—-” He was abruptly sideswiped by the rancor pup. He would be a big enough meal to keep the pup busy for a few moments. Aria hurried over to Val’s ship with Val leaning on her and his helmet under her arm. She half-dragged him up the entry ramp and closed the ramp of the ship as soon as they were inside.

“Armor off,” she said to Val.

“What?”

“Just the upper part. I can’t treat that wound properly with all the armor. And I take it you don’t want me to cut it off.”

“I’m fine,” Val’s voice sounded hollow.

“No, you’re not. That’s adrenaline and shock talking.”

“And what? You’re a doctor?”

“I served in the Jedi Halls of Healing. That’s as good as you’re going to get.”

Val grunted and did his best to get the armor off with the injury with the Jedi helping as much as she could. He half-sat and half collapsed in the pilot seat and pressed several buttons to initiate takeoff. The ship shot out of the freighter, and the flames of the freighter glowed around the little icon of Duchess Satine on Val’s viewport. Val watched the hyperdrive computer calculate a course to the D’Astan sector.

“I’ve put the canisters in place!” he could hear Aria shouting from the ship’s engine room. Val slammed a clammy hand down on the hyperdrive and the ship jumped to hyperspace. His vision was dimming, but then he felt two gentle slaps to his cheek.

“Stay awake. Look at me,” said Aria.

Val’s breath was ragged and he grunted as she put a bacta patch over the wound, then closed her eyes and put her hands on the bacta patch.

“What are you…” Val’s voice trailed off, falling weak in his throat.

“Hey,” she looked up at him, “Talk to me.”

“About what?” Val said, he felt something emanating off her hands—-it was a feeling that reminded him a bit of the magnetized rocks his mother would give to him to play with, feeling the pull between two rocks of opposite polarity—-only it was happening with his flesh, like it was drawn to itself, knitting itself together as best as it could, the bleeding slowing.

“Whatever will keep you awake. You need to take me to Serenno, ” said Aria, “Keep it exciting. I don’t want to pass out either.” She paused, “Tell me about the Zygerrian job.”

Val laughed a little then winced. It hurt to laugh. Then he told her about the Zygerrian job.


	5. Flight to Serenno

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aria: This is my friend, Val! He's amazing AND HE DROVE ME HERE.

Aria walked into the cockpit with a crate under one arm. “You know, usually when a spacer says they live on caf and rations bars, it’s an exaggeration,” she said, ripping a ration bar open with her teeth and setting a mug close to Val.

“I didn’t have you pegged for—nnnh—“ Val reached for the cup and winced, “A picky eater.”

“I’m not picky, I’m _concerned,_ ” she said, putting her hands over the large bacta patch on his side and closing her eyes.

Val took the momentary cease in pain to grab the mug of caf and sip some of it down. The bitterness woke him up a bit. He had told her about the Zygerrian job, and she had listened, in earnest, sometimes asking questions but mostly just sitting, listening, changing the soaked-through bacta patch about midway through and slapping a perigen patch on him every so often when the pain got too strong for him to proceed with the story. The word ‘concerned’ snagged him. “Concerned?” He looked at her, “Wait—you’re worried about me?”

“Of course I’m worried about you. You’d figure with the whole, ‘Helped you fight off Korbo’s henchmen, helped you after that stunt with the baradium, and is currently working very hard to keep you from bleeding out or passing out’ thing, the fact that I should show worry about you should come as little surprise,” she held up the rations bar in his face, “Don’t change the subject. Rations bars aren’t meant to be consumed on a long term basis—-they’re designed to fend off starvation for as long as possible. It’s not the same as an actual healthy diet.”

“Well look, not everyone has a magical Jedi temple or the Army of the Republic feeding them every day. And not everyone can just… hand wave their way to free food. Food doesn’t just grow on trees!” The look she gave him was more than a little concerned and he suddenly blinked and pressed a hand to his forehead and laughed a bit painfully. “Fruit…” he said, “I forgot fruit existed—ah—” He winced and brought his hand to his cheekbone, where Aria had stitched up the gash under his eye. His fingertips came away wet with blood.

“In your defense you’ve lost a lot of blood,” said Aria, rifling through the medkit and taping some gauze over the stitches. 

“And you don’t see a huge amount of things growing on Mandalore,” said Val.

“Or in space,” said Aria. She looked out the viewport, “You’ve probably seen all kinds of worlds though.”

“If you’re a smuggler you’re usually not on a planet for more than a few hours. A day or two, tops. Not a lot of time for sight-seeing.” Val paused and it started sinking in for him, “Wait, now _you’re_ changing the subject—-You’re worried about me.”

“You’ve been shot,” Aria said, gesturing at the bacta patch on his side, “Of course I’m worried about you.”

“Yeah but I mean—I dunno. If a bounty hunter caught me and was currently heavily injured and I could easily overpower him and take his ship because I’m a super-powerful wizard monk person —I’m not suggesting you do that but like… that seems like it would be the thing to do.”

“That’s barbaric!” Aria said, “Why would I do that if you’re already taking me to Serenno?”

“How do you just _trust_ that I’m taking you to Serenno?” Val’s head was pounding and his vision was dimming at the edges again, so he grabbed for the caf and drank it down.

“Well one, you’ve been shot and there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of other places for you to go. Two, with Korbo gone you no longer have the debt of 8000 credits and threat of death hanging over your head and now have some time to find alternate jobs to support yourself. Three, if this place has the resources to keep me hidden, they might have enough to help you out a bit,” she took a bite out of the rations bar and tried to smile through its taste, “Finally,” she said, swallowing hard and then clearing her throat, “I also have this wild theory that despite what you apparently, _desperately_ need everyone to assume, you’re a good person.”

“I’m not a good person, I just happen to be really shitty at being a bad person,” said Val.

She smiled at this. “Whatever helps you manage,” she said, handing him a rations bar and the small canteen of water he kept on hand that he really should have been drinking more of but he usually preferred it in Caf form since it put an extra step between drinking what the life support system managed to filter out of his own condensed breath and urine. He took the canteen from her and tried to drink down as much as he could before setting the canteen aside and shuddering.

“It’s cleaner than most water people get on planets, you know,” said Aria.

“Still hard not to think about,” Val pointed the rations bar at her, “Okay, I told you about the Zygerrian job. You have to tell me something now. Make me stop thinking about my ship’s filtration systems. Keep me from passing out.”

“Oh I’m boring,” Aria said. 

“That is literally impossible,” said Val, “You carry around a double-bladed sword made of lasers.”

“It’s true! All Consulars do is offer advice and support to resolve minor dispute as peacefully as possible. When we’re not doing that we’re working in the archives or teaching…I was on an archeology assignment before all this mess started. I’m not an exciting Jedi like…like Master Windu or General Skywalker…”

“Kid—I really don’t want to pass out. I trust you not to be boring. Tell me about the assignment.”

“Okay, uhm—how much do you know about the fall of the Old Republic?”

“Absolutely nothing. Please continue.”

——

Cyp never thought Dejarik boards were supposed to be this pretty. He had grown up with holograms of gruesome monsters bashing each other’s brains into low-res red and purple holo-pixels, the creatures on Renatus’s Dejarik board were elegant as ghhhks and k’lorr slugs could possibly be, more appealing silhouettes than gruesome beasts. Nearly everything on Renatus’s estate (‘Villa” Renatus kept saying, “It’s called a Villa”) was prettier than anything had any right to be, but whether it was a beauty Renatus inherited or something he had created himself, Cyp could almost never tell. Renatus was an artist, a craftsman, a genius, a spoiled, damaged piece of shit with entirely too much time on his hands and an obscene amount of wealth. Well meaning though, and generous, embarrassingly so.

Renatus had insisted on everyone bathing and went so far as to provide changes of clothes for Cyp and the younglings, and the first hours in the Villa had been some well-overdue rest for everyone, and the hours after featured a tour of the villa and its surrounding grounds, and an introduction to the staff (All droids). From there, Cyp and the younglings had been fitted for new clothes, (“If you’re going to hide here you must look as if you belong here,” Renatus insisted, “Otherwise it’s not hiding at all, is it?”) and now Cyp sat across Renatus on a sunlit veranda as the younglings distracted themselves in the courtyard.

“I’ve taken the liberty of cataloguing what we saved from the Archives,” said Renatus, moving his ghhhk over a panel on the board, “The good news is that we’ve saved some records on the process of synth crystal production and meditation.”

“Jedi don’t use synth crystals,” said Cyp, moving his Grimtaash over to take the ghhhk.

“I was aware, but I figured the current status of the Jedi might force us to make some exceptions,” said Renatus, watching as Grimtaash beat the ghhhk to a muddle of shadows. 

“The younglings aren’t old enough to build their own lightsabers, and I’m not a Jedi. There’s not exactly anyone to teach them. Maybe the situation would be different if we had had time to grab some holocrons back at the temple, but we didn’t.”

“That was one of the suggestions I had— See, my father saw to it that I had a proper education befitting a future count of Serenno, and part of that education included dueling. I can’t teach them very much about the Force but as far as simple self-defense goes—-”

“Renatus,” Cyp glanced up from the board and then glanced over at the younglings, “I know you want to help, but as it stands our first priority is survival. Master Kenobi’s instructions were to stay hidden. There may still be Jedi out there. We can’t just throw out all of our traditions.”

“You’re right. I overstepped. My apologies.” Cyp moved his Grimtaash again. “Alderaanian?” Renatus said after Cyp made his move.

“What?”

“Father always said Alderaanians tend to overly favor Grimtaash the Molator in Dejarik,” said Renatus, moving his M’onnok over a space.

“I don’t remember my life before the Jedi temple very well,” said Cyp, watching as the M’onnok beat Grimtaash to a dark pulp on the Dejarik board, “I’m pretty sure I’m Chandrilan.”

“A distracted Chandrilan,” said Renatus, turning the board off, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Cyp frowned and glanced off, “It’s nothing.” he said quietly.

“It’s the girl, obviously,” said Renatus, standing up and walking over to a cellarette and pulling out a bottle of something golden and something a fiery orange color and grabbing two glasses.

“I did call her,” said Cyp as Renatus half-filled the glasses with the gold liquid.

“Again? If you needed my communication equipment I would have happily—”

“I know, and thank you,” Cyp sighed, “I wanted it to be private.” 

“I see. And?” Renatus was already uncorking the bottle and filling the rest of the glasses with the fiery liquid.

“I got an automated message back saying her transmitter is no longer receiving signals.”

“So it’s probably the worst then,” Renatus held a glass out to Cyp. Everything looked like flames on Serenno, from the autumn trees to the drink Renatus held out to him.

“What is this?” Cyp sniffed the glass and flinched slightly, the insides of his nostrils burning.

“I don’t know what your Jedi traditions surrounding mourning are, but here on Serenno we honor our dead with toasts and drink,” he held his glass aloft, “To Aurora.”

“Aria,” said Cyp.

“To Aria,” Renatus clinked his glass against Cyp’s and then drank deeply from it. Cyp attempted to drink but found the drink absurdly strong. Somewhere in the midst of burning and bitterness there may have been something tart and floral, but Cyp was woefully inexperienced with…any drinks. Ever. He politely attempted to keep going through the drink, but then noticed Renatus was looking at him expectantly. “You can say something, if you like,” said Renatus.

“Oh—” Cyp looked at the glass and then ran a hand through his hair, “Master Yoda always said that we were luminous beings, but that our bodies were only temporary, that one day we return to the Force,” he closed his eyes and pursed his lips, “I was never as strong in the Force as the rest of the initiates.. but… I have this feeling, or maybe it’s just a silly hope that…wherever she is, whatever’s happened to her, she’s found some happiness. Some peace.”

——-

“…And it was terrifying. The whole castle’s cantina: dead silent. Hondo is just sprawled on the floor and Mom’s got six Weequay pirates pointing blasters at her because she just clocked their leader in the face and she’s ready to clock him again. She’s ready to take on the whole Ohnaka gang if she has to, I could see it in her eyes. And then you hear a bunch of people gasp and I look and I see Hondo is sitting up. Hondo rises to his feet, wipes the blood (or whatever it is for Weequay) off his lip, and then he shouts, ‘Maz! This woman’s next drink is on me!’”

Aria burst out laughing. Val laughed a little too but winced and his hand went to his side. They were on the last bacta patch in his medkit. Bacta, perigen, and stories were all they had to keep him from passing out. He only hoped that everything that was happening right now was actually happening and not some injury-induced hallucination his brain had cooked up to cope with death. It felt like everything they were doing was only a stopgap against his own encroaching unconsciousness. Aria put her hands over his and called on the Force. “You’re making that up,” she said, closing her eyes.

“Am not. I never lie when it comes to my mom or else I’m pretty sure she’d come halfway across the galaxy to kick my ass,” Val’s smile faded as he watched her trying to use the Force to knit his wound together as best she could, “Do you have to do that? You’ve been doing that…stuff so much I’m scared you’re going to get an aneurism or something.”

“The Force can’t give you an aneurism,” said Aria with a roll of her eyes. Then she glanced up from his injury, “Wait, you’re _worried_ about me?”

_I need to give you a tutorial on how to turn on the autopilot in case I pass out,_ Val thought, but instead, what came out of his mouth was, “Psh, no. Of course no—-Where did you get that idea? It’s ridiculo—I never sai—Don’t make me turn this ship around.”

Aria snickered and smiled at him with…smugness wasn’t the right word. She was still scared, she was still exhausted, but something about her face had changed. He tried remembering the tantrum-throwing manipulative little witch he had seen…had it been hours or a day ago? Hyperspace always messed with his perception of time, and dealing with the hole Korbo’s blaster had punched through him didn’t really help much either. But he remembered the look in her eyes, how she almost looked like a ghost then, when she spoke of how the galaxy was getting smaller, darker, and lonelier. Maybe it was all the perigen patches from his medkit that she had slapped on him to keep the pain away, but if he didn’t know any better he’d say there was a look in her eyes now like maybe there could be hope in the midst of the empire digging its claws into the galaxy. He cleared his throat. “Anyway it’s your turn.”

“All right,” Aria thought for a moment, “Well…A while back when I was still a padawan, my master and I were tasked with overseeing a group of youngling’s Gathering ceremony.”

“Okay,” Val nodded, “Question: What’s the Gathering?” Val found that most of the stories Aria told often ended up with him asking more questions than her actually telling the story. She had already gone through the difference between a youngling and a padawan, the distinction of Jedi Consulars from other Jedi Knights, the difference between Jedi Knights and Jedi Masters, the different branches of the service corps, and a quick run-through of the years leading up to the fall of the Old Republic. It was odd how open she was about it. He had always heard of Jedi described as mysterious and secretive, trusting only other Jedi, working only for the advancement of the their order and the whole “peacekeeping” thing Jedi laid claim to being little more than propaganda. He still hadn’t given up those reservations about the Order. He figured he probably never would.

Aria though, the way she spoke about the Order, it was just… people. It wasn’t terrifying lightsaber-wielding knights inflicting their will across the galaxy—it was teachers, peers, protectors. Yes, Master Windu could be intimidating, yes, Master Yoda could be infuriatingly vague, yes, General Skywalker and Master Vos usually ignored all Jedi decorum, and yes, Master Ki-Adi-Mundi’s head was impossibly far up his ass considering its size, but despite all their power they were people who only wanted to see a safe and free galaxy.

She was sadder than she wanted to let on. He could tell. He had seen it in her eyes when she reached into her bag a few hours back to look for her transmitter, only to remember that it had been destroyed back on Korbo’s freighter. He wasn’t sure whether she meant to contact Cyp or re-watch Master Kenobi’s message for the 411th time, but she just straightened her shoulders and then said it was his turn to tell a story. Maybe talking about the Order, explaining how it worked, telling stories about it, maybe that was the way she could keep them alive for herself. 

“Okay, see my lightsaber?” Aria held up her lightsaber, “On the inside of it there’s a kyber crystal powering it. The Gathering is when a youngling goes to the Jedi Temple on Ilum to retrieve a Kyber crystal from the caves for their lightsaber. It’s basically the last step a youngling has to go through before they can move on to Padawan rank. You have to explore this massive ice cave, overcome your own personal obstacles, and get your crystal and get out before the setting sun makes the cave freeze over and you’re trapped inside and fail.”

“They do this with _children?_ ” Val looked at her, “That’s horrible!”

“When did your mother first teach you to shoot a blaster rifle?” asked Aria.

“I was eleven,” Val rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, then his brow furrowed, “But it’s different, she had to teach me, we lived on _Mandalore_ —you _had_ to know these things from a young age.” 

“And proper training in the ways of the force meant meeting great challenges from a young age as well,” Aria folded her arms and leaned back in her chair, “Truth be told, I was never that fond of it either but… I feel like… when the Force is with you…it gives you this—this hunger, almost. It emerges from a young age. And part of being a Jedi is learning patience, learning to control that hunger, but also you have that hunger that’s pushing you through all these challenges—challenges you know you’re too young for, challenges you know you’re not 100% ready for, but you just need to do them. You don’t know what you’re trying to prove but you feel like you have to prove it,” she chuckled a little, “If you knew the younglings I was working with…” she trailed off and smiled. Then she perked up. “Oh! The story! Sorry. Anyway, there was this one youngling in my group and he was positively insufferable. His name was…oh blast, I was just thinking about him the other day…You remind me a bit of him actually.” 

“Really?”

“Yeah. He had a warmer skin tone though. And his eyes were bluer. Or greener. Cade—Cane—Caleb. Caleb Dume. And _ugh_ he was the _worst_ —-I mean he wasn’t a _bad_ youngling, just… I swear he had a hand up almost the entire time. Just question after question after question after question. He even woke me up four times on the ride there when everyone was supposed to be resting for the test, asking, ‘So what do the Jedi Consular do? What about a Jedi investigator? Who else is an investigator besides Master Sinube? What if I fail and they dump me in the service corps? Can I take the test again if I fail? Can I die on the test?’ On and on and on. So we finally reach Ilum, and we run through the whole introduction to the Gathering and we really don’t have that much time and of course Caleb has his arm up with fourteen more questions and finally it got to the point where I said—-”

“Serenno,” said Val.

“No, I said—-”

“Serenno,” Val repeated and pointed out the viewport at the planet coming into view. _You made it. Try and make it through atmospheric entry. You can do this._

“Oh!” Aria suddenly stood up, “Cyp! I need to call Cyp! He needs to know I’m alive! Ugh!” She pressed her hands to her forehead, “Stupid!”

"To be fair, you were kind of distracted by the whole not-letting-me-die thing." Val smirked, but then his smile faded, "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault you got shot," said Aria, fumbling around his control board for the ship's transmitter.

"No I mean about... The whole..." Val trailed off and gestured, “…thing.”

"Shooting me with a dart and keeping me in a closet with the intent to turn me over to the Empire?" Aria finally found and grabbed the transmitter.

“Yeah. That. I'm sorry about that."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry I smashed a glass into your helmet, pushed you off a hover tram, attempted to use mind tricks on you, and called you a kriffing bastard for 5 hours straight."

"Yeah but you were right to. You were just trying to survive---I mean, not the five hours of insults but... You were doing all that to survive."

"And the reason you captured me in the first place was because you were trying to survive--- but you didn't want me dead. You wanted an alternative where I don't die and Korbo is able to make back at least some of the money you lost him. I suppose my only question is what prompted that?"

Val paused for a long while. Truth be told he was still asking himself that question and there were more answers every time. _Because underneath all that lightsaber spinning and freaky magic you're just a scared kid. Because whatever shit the Jedi council pulled, obviously you weren't a part of it. Because I'm not like Korbo and I never want to be like him. Because you believe I don't want to be like Korbo and apparently that and an apology is all you need to go on. Because whoever the hell Cyp is, he's in love with you. Because I feel like I could pass out any minute but I probably would have been dead hours ago if not for you._ He didn't answer and he pointed at the transmitter in her hand. "You need to call Cyp.” 

"Oh!" Aria entered a frequency into the transmitter.

—-

“One last stair! Come on now, show me that Jedi training!”

“I’m no’ a…” Cyp was slumped against Renatus’s shoulder.

“Not a Jedi. I know. You’ve said that fourteen times already. But who’s counting?” Renatus paused, “Me. I’m counting. Thank you, for not throwing up, by the way,” Renatus said, half-hoisting Cyp up to the last level to the villa’s guest rooms.

“….’msorry.” Cyp said, as Renatus kept both his hands on his shoulders. He suddenly blinked a few times and blurted out, “Th’younglings!” And almost moved to go down the stairs which they had taken so much time getting up but Renatus kept a firm grip on his tunic.

“They’re going to bed. You’re going to bed,” Renatus said, opening a door to one of the guest rooms.

“Sorry,” Cyp said again.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” said Cyp, “I…probably should have asked how much experience you have with liquor before pouring you that second glass. Or that fifth glass. How much experience do you have with liquor?”

“None!” Cyp declared then hiccuped and slumped against Renatus. Renatus patted his back. “I’m…I’m a…I’m disgracing th’ Service Corps.”

“You are not,” said Renatus, leading Cyp into the guest room and over to the bed, “You got those younglings here. You’re in mourning.”

Cyp flopped down onto the bed and Renatus did his best to move him onto his side.

“Thank you,” Cyp said, his voice semi-muffled by a pillow.

“Wouldn’t want you to survive Jedi purge just to die choking on your own—-”

“No—I mean…thank you for all your help. For letting us stay here. I know it’s a big risk…”

Renatus made a sound that was between a huff and a chuckle. “I never got to be a Jedi—One of my governesses always liked to tell me stories about them. They were never the heroes in Serenno’s stories, but they were heroes to so many other parts of the galaxy. It was frightening at first, but little by little I found myself wanting to be like them. To be a protector—to be someone people look to for help, to have that kind of bravery—” Renatus paused and noticed Cyp was quietly snoring, “…And I’m talking to myself.” Renatus stood up and walked to the door, only to hear some buzzing from the small bedside table. Renatus walked over to Cyp. “Hey—wake up—your transmitter—it’s—-” Cyp mumbled something and turned away from him. Renatus sighed and picked up the transmitter and flipped it open. The hologram of a girl with boy-short hair and large eyes appeared.

_“Hello? Cyp? Cyp, are you there?”_

“Oh—it’s you.” Renatus said quietly. He began shaking Cyp’s shoulder now. “Cyp—Hey—”

_“Who are you? Is Cyp there—-?”_

A voice came from out of view of the transmitter. _“KId—It could be a trap—they may have just used Cyp to—-”_

“Cyp is here!” Renatus blurted out.

_“Please, can I speak with him?”_

“Uh…” Renatus glanced back at the passed-out educorps teacher, “I’m afraid he’s indisposed at the moment.”

_“Is he alright?”_ she gasped, _“Are you holding him captive?”_

“No!” Renatus said, waving a hand and walking out of the room to let Cyp sleep, “Sorry. ‘Indisposed’ sounds sinister. He’s quite safe. He got dr—I mean, some Serenno food didn’t agree with him and he’s resting. He should be fine in the morning.”

_“Oh…"_ she ran a hand through her hair, _“Who are you?”_

_“Renatus Milenzo. I’m a friend.”_

_“I don’t like this,”_ the other voice came in again, _“If it’s just stomach problems I’m sure…urgh…”_

_“Excuse me,”_ she turned away from Renatus and looked to the source of the voice, _“Are you all right?”_

_“Nnh—I’m fine—I’m sure Cyp wouldn’t mind being woken up to… find out you’re alive—-ah—shit—-”_

_“Hey—hey it’s okay—-Just hang in there a little bit longe—Val? Hey—oh… oh nonononono—wake up!”_ There was beeping in the background and the girl disappeared from the transmitter for several moments until the beeping turned off and she came back into view. She turned back to Renatus, _“I may be making a huge mistake, but do you have medical droids where you are?”_

“Yes,” Renatus said, “Yes of course. I’ll send you the coordinates.” 

_“Thank you,”_ she said before her hologram faded out. 

_—-_

Cyp woke up with a terrible taste in his mouth to see a platter with two large glasses of water and tangerette juice on his bedside table. He rubbed his head and downed both glasses within seconds of each other and felt his headache and stomachache reduced. Stupid Renatus. He glanced at a set of fluffy towels just outside his room's bathing quarters. Stupid Renatus, he thought as he showered. Stupid considerate Renatus, he thought as he pulled on a clean set of clothes. He opened the door and moved downstairs. He saw Renatus walking out from the kitchen, talking, laughing. He glanced toward Cyp. 

"Oh-- are you feeling better?" 

"Who are you talking to?" asked Cyp, walking to the bottom of the stairs. 

“I--Did you get the juice and water I put in your room? How are you?” 

"I'm fine," Cyp moved to sidestep Renatus but Renatus moved back in his way, "What are you trying to hide from me?" 

"Hide--- I'm not hiding anything. I just think it might be best if you take a moment and--" 

"You said this place was safe so who else is he--" Cyp heard Tepui laughing and pushed past Renatus. The kitchen was filled with a lot more sunlight than he was prepared for and he squinted and heard a laugh fade and then his vision adjusted. She was staring at him, not even noticing the tangerette juice she was pouring out for Tepui was now spilling over the sides of the glass until she suddenly shook her head and set the carafe down and wiped a bandaged hand on the knee-length gray dress that had obviously been lent to her by Renatus and was a bit too big on her. All of her braids had been shorn or singed away, her cheeks were hollower than usual, she looked exhausted, haunted, half-starved, but alive, and therefore never more beautiful. He banged his hip on the table and nearly knocked over a chair tearing across the kitchen to her and she whipped her skinny arms around him. Her skin was cold to the touch but it had always been that way. He was hugging her and now more afraid than ever that she would break and suddenly disappear. She was talking and he was talking and they were talking over each other and he only made out about 60% of what they were both saying. When sound seemed to come back into the world he was hearing himself stupidly repeating “You’re alive. You’re okay. You’re here. How? You’re alive. You’re here.” 

She was crying. She was laughing. 

_—-_

Val woke up in a sunlit room with a start. His eyes flicked around rapidly. He remembered the ship was entering Serenno and it was shaking and shuddering as it usually did-- the kid was on the ship's transmitter-- the kid--where was she? Val sat up and felt a dull ache tug on his arm. He glanced over to see an IV attached to his arm. He sat up and the blood rushed from his head and slumped back against a too-comfortable pillow. His hand went to his side and he pulled up the dark red medical tunic he had been put into to see a large clean bacta patch. Compared to desperately fending off pain and unconsciousness earlier, he felt great. Even the hole Korbo’s blaster had punched into him was more or less just an aching, slightly burning memory. 

He inched over to the edge of the bed where the IV stand was and slowly sat up again. He squinted at the two bags hanging from it, one red and one clear. Blood and saline solution. No sedatives but he had no idea how long he had been out and the pain was far enough away and his head was foggy enough to know they had been used on him. He pulled the thousand-something-thread-count sheets away to find he had been put into a pair of dark red scrub pants. It didn't feel right. It was too soft, too light. His armor. He had to find his armor and gun, then find the kid, if she was still alive. He had no idea who was holding them, he had no idea if she was still alive. 

He rose to his feet and the blood rushed from his head again and he grabbed onto the IV stand to stabilize himself. He noticed there were wheels at the base and having no desire to rip the needles out of his arm, wheeled the IV alongside himself. He looked around to see a bowl of fruit and a pitcher of what he assumed to be tangerette juice. He walked over, picked up a manta pear, sniffed it and bit into it. It was unthinking and it almost came as such a shock to him that he nearly gagged and spit it out--- not that it tasted bad, he just couldn't remember the last time he had eaten anything that wasn't a rations bar. He wasn't used to food with an actual flavor. He ate the rest in under a minute, considered the possibility that it might be poisoned, figured if whoever was keeping him here wanted him dead they could have blasted him in the head when he was unconscious, grabbed his IV stand and wheeled it along with him as he walked to the door. He opened the door to see a droid standing there. 

"Sir," the droid spoke, "it is recommended you go back to bed and res---" 

"Where am I?" Val asked. 

"The Milenzo estate. Anerazi region. Serenno. It is recommended you go back to bed and res---" 

"I came here with a girl. Where is she?" 

"Your companion is fine. It is recommended---" 

Val shoved past the droid, IV stand rattling with him as he entered into an enormous hall. He looked around. It was nicer than any place he had ever been in. There were portraits and glass sculptures lining the walls, and stained glass skylights overhead. His mind was already assembling a new prayer. Gun. Ammo. Armor. Kid. Food? He tried to fill in the gaps in his memory. The kid was on the transmitter. Freckled boy wasn’t there. Then blackness. His ship. Had it crashed? If anything had happened to it his mom would be calling him if not on Serenno herself and personally kicking his ass. The ship had to be in semi-flyable condition wherever it was. He stepped out of the hallway to a large foyer and stairwell. He heard soft footsteps coming from behind. He turned on his heel, not having his blaster rifle on him, he instinctively ended up wrenching up his IV stand and pointing it threateningly at the source of the sound, which was a Rodian child, who shrieked and ran in the opposite direction down the hall. 

“Wait—I didn’t—-Don’t—” Val slapped a hand to his forehead and set the IV stand back down, then did his best to get the damned thing down the stairs with him. He heard a muffled sound of chatter and the scrape of plates and smelled food and moved toward that. Eventually the chatter moved from a fog of words to something he could actually follow. 

“Your hair is gone!” 

“I cut it off…most of it,” Val heard the jedi’s voice and started walking faster, “A lot of it got burned. Three younglings! Three! How’d you manage to do it?” 

Val stepped into the doorway of the kitchen and saw Aria, Cyp (his hair was a lot redder than the hologram had let on), a Nautolan who couldn’t be over 11, a busy kitchen droid, and the man who had answered Cyp’s transmitter back before Val had passed out. 

“We had help from—-” Cyp glanced toward him and trailed off. He glanced toward the person Val vaguely remembered answering Cyp’s transmitter and said, “Renatus—who is that?” 

Val’s stomach twisted in knots as his mind came up with all the answers. _I’m the lowlife who tranq’d a damn kid on Lyalli because I needed money. I’m the piece of shit who was keeping your friend in my closet with the intent of handing her over to the Empire. I’m the idiot who dragged her into a firefight, got shot, and nearly blew us both up._

“He’s my friend,” Aria answered easily, “I wouldn’t be here without him.” 


	6. The Derors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I have Mandalorian headcanons.

Sheev Palpatine flickered in the villa’s basement Holo-theater. 

_“The Jedi, some within our own Senate, had conspired to create the shadow of Separatism using one of their own as the enemy’s leader.”_

“That’s a lie!” Galix blurted out but Tepui shushed him and he shrank into his seat, glowering. They had spent most of the day in small theater, watching holonews and trying to figure out exactly how effective the purge of the Jedi was. Aria glanced over at the younglings, wondering if it was a mistake to bring them in to watch the speech. Maybe they should have given them a few days to let them rest, to try and put whatever they had seen at the temple further behind them, to play in the villa’s fountains and gardens and recover, but some restless, pacing thing in her made her turn back to the hologram. 

_“The remaining Jedi will be hunted down and defeated! Any collaborators will suffer the same fate.”_

Aria glanced over at Renatus at this. He didn’t seem very threatened by the notion. Maybe he had spent so much time being rich and sheltered that he simply could not understand how much danger he was in, how much danger helping them put him in. Something about the absurd opulence and emptiness of Renatus’ villa combined with the knowledge that the remaining Jedi were being hunted down all over the galaxy made her itch to get out of there, to go out and fight.

_Be secret,_ but be strong, she remembered Master Kenobi’s message. Since her transmitter had been destroyed, she had noticed more than she liked how much she had been dependent on it in the days before Val had captured her on Lyalli. She noticed how much its absence affected her. She kept trying to tell herself it was for the best—that if she had kept it and kept listening to it, eventually someone would see her watching a hologram of a wanted Jedi fugitive and she would be snatched right up by the Empire, but still, there was something disorienting about its absence. When she was a padawan, she got space-sick easily and her master had told her to focus on a single star outside the ship and her own breathing, and for a time, Master Kenobi’s message had been that star, that orienting point, that axis that kept her from feeling any more lost than she already was. 

_“By bringing the entire galaxy under one law, one language, and the enlightened guidance of one individual, the corruption that plagued the Republic in its later years will never take root.”_

“He can’t do that!” Galix blurted out again, the tips of his lekku were jabbing into his back. Aria didn’t have as good a grasp on Ryl to know what exactly what it meant, but she knew it was both an insult and a threat.

“Peace, Galix—” Aria said, stepping next to him.

“No, he can’t do that!” Galix’s teal skin was flushed dark with fury, “They can’t do that to Ryloth—-not everyone speaks basic—Not everyone _wants_ to speak basic—Ryl is—-it’s _home_ , it’s not—-”

Aria bit the inside of her lip and looked at Cyp, who was still watching Palpatine’s speech. Cyp knew the younglings better than she did but he had managed to give her a brief rundown on each of them. Tepui was the oldest, the most mature, but still recovering from losing two of her head tendrils, the conflict on Ryloth had resulted in Galix joining the order a few years later than most younglings, and Oda had seen something back in the temple that the others hadn’t and was prone to wandering around and flinching even when someone was just calling his name. Aria put a hand on Galix’s shoulder and bent to his level. 

“When you’re a Jedi, you’re a Jedi before all else. You’re a Jedi before you’re Rylothian, Ryloth isn’t the only planet that will be affected by the Empire. Do you understand?”

“Yes but—but—He’s _lying,_ ” Galix said bitterly, “He lied about the Jedi—-why do we have to watch if it’s all just lying?”

“We have to find out what they’re telling everybody—Even if we know they’re lying, what they want everyone to believe might give us some clues as to what happened,” she glanced back a the hologram, “What they could do next.”

“It’s not entirely lying either,” Cyp spoke up, “The Jedi council attempted to oust Palpatine. There aren’t a lot of specifics. The Holo-News keeps playing the same security footage of Masters Windu, Fisto, Tin, and Kolar outside his office, but nothing after that.”

“It doesn’t make sense…” Aria murmured, “Skywalker defeated Dooku. The clone war was practically over. The council wouldn’t try and destabilize the galaxy all over again.”

“If I were a gambling man I’d say he did something to force their hand,” said Renatus, “Make them think they need to act quickly, they try and take care of a threat as fast as possible, get sloppy, put themselves in a position where they could lose everything in just a few careful moves,” he glanced over at Cyp, “You see that sort of thing in Dejarik all the time.”

“We have to do _something!_ ” Galix said, “We need to tell people the truth! We need to find the other Jedi! We need to help all the planets! We can’t just hide!”

“You, Tepui, and Oda are far from combat-ready and I’m barely a Jedi myself. If we rush up against the Empire at this point we’ll die. All of us.” Aria was frightened by the certainty in her own voice, and she saw that same fear in Galix’s eyes. She exhaled. “Galix, I want you to go and meditate.”

“Meditate?!”

“Connect with the Force. Let it help you find strength, wisdom, and patience.”

“Jedi are supposed to help people,” Galix said bitterly, “I watched…I saw at the temple…” he started but he bit his lip and his face flushed dark again, instantly regretting bringing up his own memories and then bursting out, “You weren’t there! It’s easy for you not to care because you weren’t there!” Galix’s eyes traced over her face and he regretted those words too. In the background the hologram of Palpatine declared, _“Ten thousand years of peace begins today!”_ and the holo faded out to loud applause before Renatus shut it down.

Aria breathed in through her nose with pursed lips and folded her hands in front of her. There was a twitch in the corner of her mouth and she blinked those eerie gray eyes a few times before saying, “Do not mistake my composure for indifference.” The Umbaran came out in her accent a bit and elevated the words from command to almost a spell, but there was a shake in her voice. Not rage, no, she knew he was a child, she knew he was in pain, and the discipline and patience she had learned as a consular had let her endure far worse things said to her. Galix realized quickly that he had touched on something painful and raw in the Jedi, something she had stuffed down, meditated away from, done whatever she could to outrun so that she could survive. “Go and meditate,” she said, drawing herself back up to her full height, which wasn’t very tall, but effective all the same. Galix left the room. 

—

Val could feel the medical droid’s eyes on him as he sat at the workbench. It had been enough of a hassle just to get the bucket of bolts to let him out of bed. Val figured if he was still stuck here recovering he might as well make some adjustments to his armor. The bacta had done its job, for the most part. The point on his side where he had been shot still ached and burned and the dressing had to be changed every couple of hours or so, and his vision blurred and head ached when he stood up too fast or moved around too much, but the bacta had healed him up enough so that he could move around without all his blood falling out of him, which was good. It also meant he’d have to get off-planet soon, or find some other count on Serenno who needed some muscle or something like that. He no longer needed gauze on the mark below his eye, but Aria’s stitches were still there. He originally had the Holo-news playing in the background, to try and get some bearing on what was going on off-world and if Korbo’s freighter had been picked up, but it was all either propaganda telling people to enlist in the Imperial fleet or senators licking Imperial boots and he had turned it off.

He squinted at his helmet, making the mark under his eye sting slightly, and tested the new enamel coating with his finger—-warm enough for detailing, but not too hot to handle with bare hands. He still felt naked without his armor, but handling it was somewhat comforting. He picked up the small plasma-stylus next to him and gingerly set it to the enamel. He never considered himself much of an artist and was utterly terrified of screwing up and having to re-enamel his helmet all over again. 

"Are you drawing jaig eyes?" The voice made Val instinctively pull the stylus away from his helmet before he could screw up. "What?" He glanced up and saw one of the younglings-- the twi'lek, Galen or whatever his name was. He turned his attention back at his helmet, making a clean sharp diagonal line across the right hemisphere of his helmet. "No-- I can't draw my own Jaig eyes. A clan or house leader has to bestow them on me," he paused, "How do you know about jaig eyes?"

"The clone troopers paint them on their helmets sometimes," he squinted at Val as he drew another sharp sweeping line across the helmet, "You're.... not a clone."

"I hope not," said Val. He held the helmet over to the youngling, showing a simple, stylized silhouette of a bird with a forked tail. "It's a deror."

"A what?"

"It's a kind of bird on Mandalore. Well... It used to live on Mandalore. I think I saw one once when I was younger. I don't think there are that many anymore. Mandalorian spacefarers put them on their armor when they've flown 10,000 light years." The exact amount of lightyears one had to travel before they could mark their armor with a deror was a subject of debate among Mandalorian spacers, especially given the fickleness of hyperspace itself—-the general consensus was 5,000 lightyears for one, 10,000 lightyears for the second. Val was etching out two.

"You've flown that many?” Galix said, picking up one of the tools on the table in front of Val.

"Pretty sure I’ve flown more than that. And in a day or two I’m going to fly even more.”

“You’re leaving,” Galix said. There was a flatness in his voice, disappointment.

“Well… I’m not a Jedi,” Val said, turning his attention back to his helmet, “You guys need to train, if I stick around I’ll probably just get in the way. ”

“Aria said you were a friend. She said you helped her.”

“Well…yeah.”

“And the Empire is hurting people. They’re hunting down Jedi.”

“I know.”

“And you’re leaving?”

“Well what do you expect me to do here?”

“Help.”

Val frowned and then looked around the garage before looking back at Galix. “Did… did Aria put you up to this?”

“No—-does she want you to stay?”

“No…well…maybe…I don’t know. Look, Galen—”

“Galix.” 

“Galix— Aria told me the whole thing,” said Val, turning his attention back to the helmet, “You’re raised on all these stories about magic and heroes and how people are so great and brave and do the right thing all the time—the galaxy isn’t like that. Jedi are like that, maybe, some Jedi—-but most people are selfish and scared and make mistakes and don’t have magic to help them out and then their mistakes get bigger until eventually their life is nothing more than a continuous stream of terrible decisions and eventually one of those mistakes kills them.” Val didn’t remember until too late that he was talking to a ten-year-old, then set the plasma stylus down and ran a hand through his hair nervously, “I mean…that’s…that’s not the case with everyone just… yeah.”

“But you’re not like those people. Aria said you’re—-” 

“I am one of those people. I was talking about me.”

"But you helped her!"

Val shook his head. "That's not how it started out. You know how we met?"

“No,” Galix’s voice was wary.

Val held up his helmet and inspected the newly etched deror at different angles. ”Long story short, I was broke and trying to turn her in to the Empire for a bounty. I managed to get her on my ship, but then the people I owed money to caught us and they would have killed me if she hadn't helped. She could have let me die and just taken my ship but she didn't. My ship got her here, but she got _me_ here alive."

"So... How'd you know to come here?” asked Galix.

Val was about to answer when another voice cut in. ”Yes, Val, how _did_ you know?"

Val recognized the voice immediately. He sat up and looked to the doorway to the villa's main halls. Cyp was leaning there and frowning. Cyp’s eyes fell on Galix. "Didn't Aria tell you to go meditate?" 

Galix looked at Val, then looked at Cyp, then immediately broke away and walked out of the garage. 

Val rubbed the back of his neck. "I was going to tell you---"

"Were you?" Cyp pushed off of the doorway and walked into the garage.

"I mean..." Val glanced down at his helmet as if it were answers and not birds he had just etched into it, "If it came up."

"You weren't," Cyp said flatly.

"Probably not, no."

Cyp's eyes narrowed. "So how did you get her onto your ship? Did you stun her or did you just," he mimed the movement of hitting something with the butt of a rifle, "Clonk her in the head when she wasn't looking?"

“Butt-stroke,” said Val without thinking.

Cyp’s eyes widened and his cheeks reddened. "I beg your pardon?” he said. Val saw the look on Cyp's face and realized his own word choice and snorted. "I'm sorry, is this _funny_ to you?" said Cyp.

"No you just---The thing you just described---with a blaster rifle—“ Val imitated the movement Cyp had done, "It's called a butt-stroke.” The look on Cyp’s face caught Val off-guard—-for someone whom he had mostly only seen sobbing and worrying over younglings on a hologram, it was unsettling to see him so full of suspicion and resentment. Val cleared his throat, "I didn't do that,” he added quickly, “I sniped her with a tranquilizer."

"Oh well that's much better," said Cyp with the level of bitterness in his voice unchanged. 

"Look I know she's your friend and you care about her but we worked things out. And in a day or two I'll be gone and you'll never see me again. You don't need to worry."

"Right," said Cyp, "So I should just trust that you'll leave and go your own way and you won't say a thing to the Empire about the Jedi and three younglings hiding out on Serenno."

Val's mouth tightened. "Yes?" he said after a beat.

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” said Cyp.

Val sighed, exhausted. “I was under the impression that Jedi assume the best in people,” he said.

“I’m not a Jedi,” said Cyp.

“Okay, but Aria is, and she trusts me,” said Val.

Cyp flushed. His next words were tight. “Jedi putting their trust in the wrong people is the reason why we’re here.”

A sick, rotten feeling burned in the pit of Val’s stomach. He scoffed and turned his attention back to his helmet, “Well the reason _I’m_ here is because I trusted a Jedi and I’d be dead if I didn’t. If I’m so untrustworthy, maybe you should bring that up with Aria.” A part of him wanted to go further, to say, _‘I saw your holo to Aria and I know you’re in love with her so drop all this ‘untrustworthy Mandalorian’ shit and admit that this is years of Jedi Academy banthashit leaving you a sexually-stunted man-child who’s picking a fight rather than dealing with your crush like a normal person’_ but he knew it wasn’t just that. There was something in Cyp’s face that he had remembered seeing in Aria’s eyes back on his ship, back on Korbo’s freighter. It was a quiet, constant presence of the fight-or-flight instinct, the mind both constantly flinching away from what had been inflicted on it and at the same time doing everything it its power to make sure it never happened again. Val swallowed his words and turned his attention back to his helmet, feeling Cyp’s eyes burning on him.

A long and painful pause passed between them, the only sound being the scratchy hum of the plasma stylus on the helmet’s new enamel as Val tried to focus on finishing the two birds until the Medical droid suddenly jerked to life and spoke up, “Guest Val, it is time to change medical dressings and administer antibiotics.”  
"Wonderful," said Val, standing up and setting his helmet down.

For the first time since coming to Serenno, Val internally thanked the medical droid before standing up and leaving the garage.

——

Aria remembered Lyalli's birds and the wood mantas and the few speckles of sunlight that made it through the canopy showing up on her outstretched arms like stars. _There has to be a purpose to all this,_ she thought, running her hands over the carvings on a wall half overgrown with vines. Her ruins. She had never been sure if the peace they had once given her was from her own personal feelings toward the place, or if it was one of those rare spots in the galaxy where one could feel the currents of the Force. _Why would the mind do this to itself?_ She thought as she heard a voice she knew she would never hear awake again and glanced over her shoulder to see her former master cheerfully holding up a tray with a steaming teapot. _Why do I keep doing this to myself? If I loved and missed the past so much I could pick any other day. Instead it is only this day._ She felt anxiety sink its claws into her stomach as she watched her own hands calmly pour herself a cup of tea. She felt the next events as a collapse, her world falling away from her. It started as a sick, flinching feeling, her mind seizing back from the sudden feeling of cold, of danger, of betrayal, of death, like wrenching one’s hand away from a burning surface. Death. It was happening all over the galaxy. Her master had felt it too. Sooner, stronger.

There was the sound of blasters firing from the main camp in the ruins. Service Corps members were screaming and their screams were cut short. One educorps archivist made it to them before they saw the blaster fire cut through him. Aria’s master was unsheathing her lightsaber. _The speeder,_ she was saying, grabbing Aria’s arm so tight it hurt, _get to the speeder._ Aria didn’t remember her own words. She remembered shouting about the service corps members, someone had to help them. _They’re already lost,_ her master was saying, _the speeder, go to the speeder._ She remembered panicking, fumbling to get the damned thing to start as blaster bolts whizzed past her head. One grazed her braids as the speeder started and she was driving with one hand while swatting out the flames with the other. She remembered her master gripping her stomach, hand coming away bloody, herself desperately driving the speeder, half-sobbing, asking why, what happened. Her master didn’t know. She was dying. Aria could feel her dying. She didn’t let Aria heal her. Just focus on driving, she said.

They pulled out of the forest and the speeder was flying over one of the lakes that dotted Lyalli’s forests. They needed to pick up more speed but they were more exposed there. More blaster shots. Aria moved to draw her lightsaber, to deflect some as well. She could do it. She had only been Jedi a few weeks but she was still a Jedi. But her master raised her hand and suddenly Aria was flying and the speeder was rapidly falling away from her. She raised a hand toward her master and suddenly the speeder was consumed in flames and Aria hit the water back-first, and suddenly she was sitting bolt upright in her bed in a cold sweat. 

She scrambled to the edge of the bed and got off, then started quickly rooting through the bag that she had kept her lightsaber in. The transmitter. She needed to hear the message again. She didn’t know what to do without the message. She needed to hear it again. She needed Master Kenobi’s voice telling her to be strong, telling her that there was hope. It took her a few seconds to remember what had happened to her transmitter and she pressed her palms to her forehead. Idiot. It got shot right out of your hand. You saw it. Remember where you are. You aren’t back on Lyalli anymore. 

She pulled one of the blankets off of her bed and wrapped it around herself. She didn’t feel cold so much as exposed and small. She was used to the weight of Jedi robes, of being swallowed up by big swathes of earth-toned cloth. The clothes Renatus had lent her were beautifully made, but far from what she was used to. She pulled the lightsaber out of the bag and held it against herself. She didn’t like being separated from it back on Korbo’s freighter, and she hadn’t liked being separated from it for more than a few moments ever since this whole mess started. The weight of the blanket on her shoulders as she walked out of her room and down the dark halls of the villa was welcome. In the daytime the halls were alien, but at night she could almost pretend that it was the halls of the Jedi temple.

She passed by a window and paused, seeing a figure down in the villa’s courtyard. Her fingers tightened around her lightsaber until she squinted down at the figure. It looked like Renatus. No harm in making sure it wasn’t a spy from the Empire. She descended the stairs and exited out to the courtyard. She paused, once she was close enough and once she was sure that it was Renatus, she moved to turn around and try to go back to bed and sleep, but then Renatus raised a hand and waved her over. She shrank into the blanket slightly and walked over. He seemed cheerful to see her, but his eyes trailed off of her face and upward. She followed his sight and saw the stars spilled out overhead as well as both of Serenno’s moons—one a waxing crescent and one a waning gibbous.

“Won’t be many more nights this clear,” Renatus said, prompting her to break her eyes away from the stars to look back at him. “I told Cyp earlier—-it’s autumn on Serenno—-this hemisphere, anyway. Won’t be long until the rains come in.”

“Are you a stargazer?”

“Accidentally, yes, I suppose. I think it’s more the fact that I happen to be pretty bad at sleeping and the stars…well they’re there. Oh—excuse me, where are my manners?” He suddenly scooted over on the bench where he was sitting and patted the empty spot on the stone next to him. Aria took a seat. “Do you want to talk about whatever is keeping you awake?” he said, folding his fingers together in front of him.

“I don’t know,” said Aria, “I don’t know if it would make it better or worse to talk about it.”

“I never know either,” said Renatus, “But… if it’s any consolation, you Jedi are amazing.” 

“We’ve hardly been doing anything exciting,” said Aria. 

“Well it’s not swinging a lightsaber so much as…” Renatus glanced down at his fingers, “You and Cyp have lost so much in such a short time. It’s a raw wound, but you’re so strong and you… still care about this galaxy that has all but wiped your kind out. Me? Father knocks me around a few times well over a decade ago and I’m still barely holding it together.” 

“You held it together enough to help Cyp and the younglings,” said Aria, “And your droids and all your cleverness—you could be a Jedi if—-” Aria stopped speaking and looked at him, “The Force is with you,” she said. She didn’t say it like it was a grand and mystical thing, more like it was an obvious feature on him that she hadn’t noticed until that point like, _“Oh your eyes are brown.”_

“Yes,” said Renatus, “Yes it is.”

“But your father never let you join the Jedi Order,” said Aria.

“Dooku’s return to Serenno from the Jedi Order caused a… bit of an upset,” said Renatus, “My father wanted no such hiccups in our line of succession, nor did he have any interest in me gaining the same associations as Dooku. Just because the Counts of Serenno stood with him, doesn’t mean he was well-loved, you understand.”

“I see,” said Aria.

“Father…he wasn’t cruel so much as… practical,” said Renatus. He lifted his chin and breathed in and out, composing himself. Aria wondered if that was something he had picked up from her and Cyp or if he had always done it. “Well…he probably was cruel, but cruel people—I think it hardly ever occurs to cruel people that they’re being cruel.” He exhaled again and looked at her. “But things are different now. He’s gone… most of his comital duties have fallen to various cousins and advisors and my only duty is overseeing the estate. And now, finally… I have a chance to help this galaxy with the Jedi.” He chuckled a bit, “Too late, it seems.”

“We’ll figure something out,” said Aria, “You gave us hope—- it’s easy to help the Jedi when they’re the right hand of the Senate, when they’re one of the most powerful orders in the galaxy…helping us when we’re like this is…” Aria felt herself tearing up a bit. A sniffle escaped her and she wiped at her eyes with the blanket she kept wrapped around herself, “Sorry. I’m a terrible Jedi.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry,” Renatus said, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and holding it out to her, “It’s… In an odd way it’s a comfort knowing that Jedi are capable of crying.” A half-sob, half-laugh fell out of Aria and they sat for a while longer looking up at the twin moons. Once the burn of tears had subsided from Aria’s eyes and the urge to sob was pushed back down to the pit of her stomach, Renatus stood up from the bench and stepped in front of her.

"Lady Aria---"

"Just Aria is fine."

"Right," he bit the inside of his lip, "So, before I start, full disclosure: I brought this up with Cyp and he... Well he shot me down."

"All right," said Aria, "I'll keep that in mind."

"I just think maybe I should run it by you first what with you being the Jedi and--"

"Renatus."

"Right. So... The thing is, Count Dooku's death prompted... A bit of a crisis here. For all its arsenal and armies, the Empire is still in a fledgling state. In the days following the death of Dooku, his estate was placed in the custody of the Great Assembly of Serenno. This Great Assembly is also in the midst of a crisis—-I mean, such things can be expected when suddenly the Separatist Confederacy dies with Dooku and now we have this… ‘government’ doesn’t seem like the right word but the Empire has thrown everything into flux and as a result, the Dooku Estate is lightly guarded.”

“The… Dooku Estate,” Aria repeated his words back to him and Renatus paced a bit in front of her.

“Okay, actually, I never reached this point with Cyp—-I’m getting ahead of myself. Synth crystals. You’re a Jedi. What are your thoughts on synth crystals in lightsabers?”

Aria thought for a moment. “Well… they’re usually used by the Sith,” she said slowly.

“Ah. Right. Of course. Just as Cyp said,” said Renatus.

“But…” Aria said slowly.

“But?” Renatus perked up.

“But…” said Aria, “If I were trying to eradicate the Jedi, one of the places I would stake out would be Ilum. Eradicating the Jedi is one thing, but eradicating the Gathering ceremony… eradicating any surviving Jedi’s means of passing their knowledge along… that would be how you ensure that no Jedi stand in your way in the future,” Aria folded her arms, “The Gathering ceremony is… it is precious to us… but as it stands we can’t count on it if we want the Jedi Order to survive,” She paused a bit longer before saying, “The reason we go with Kyber crystals is that they resonate with the force on their own without meditation…that they call out to their intended users and synthetic crystals are a faster and easier path but… the Sith have to meditate on hatred and the Dark Side to imbue synth crystals with the Force. Who’s to say a Jedi couldn’t imbue a synthetic crystal with light?”

“Right?” Renatus said, a bit more excitedly than he meant to before composing himself. 

“But what do synth crystals have to do with the Dooku estate?” asked Aria.

Renatus grinned and held a hand out to her, “You’ll have to come with me to find out.”

Aria took his hand, a wary smile on her face, “And what, Renatus Milenzo, exactly are we going to do?”

“Why, the only thing people awake at this hour _can_ do, Lady Aria,” said Renatus, pulling Aria to her feet, “Something stupid.”


	7. Something Stupid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just... break into the spooky old Dooku place. Go for it.

“You doing all right back there?” Renatus spoke loudly enough to be heard over the hum of the speeder bike as trees rushed past.

“It’s fine it’s just—-” Aria flinched and her grip around Renatus’s waist tightened as the speeder bike suddenly jerked upward to avoid a pale half-felled betulla tree, “Just…takes some getting used to.”

“Maybe you can drive on the way back!” Renatus said cheerfully as he took another sharp turn to avoid another tree, the leaves brushing across the top of the helmet Renatus had lent her.

Aria laughed a little nervously, “No—No, maybe…maybe when there’s daylight.” 

“Suit yourself,” said Renatus, turning the speeder bike so that it skimmed over a rock-lined river, the repulsors kicking up the white water into two trails of wake behind them. 

Renatus’s ship could only take them as far as several miles beyond the furthest border of the Dooku estate in order to avoid being immediately picked up by the palace relay towers and proximity sensors. They landed the ship in a small clearing. Cyp stretched and put his hands on his hips as his red skiff’s entry ramp lowered, looking out with some satisfaction at the dark uphill climb through the trees they had ahead of them, as if they were going for a picnic rather than breaking into a Sith Lord’s palace. Now they sped on through the alpine forests that surrounded Count Dooku’s estate, two small seeker droids perched on Aria’s shoulders.

It was several minutes of zooming uphill before the main tower of the palace came into view. Renatus slowed the speeder bike down to a stop just where the woods ended and the main grounds of the estate began. 

Renatus crouched behind a tree and pulled out a pair of electrobinoculars, tweaking some of its settings with a few quick button presses before looking through them at the palace. Aria closed her eyes, trying to get some kind of feel for the place through the force.

“I’m seeing… seven…eight… Eleven guards from the Assembly on the main grounds, probably more inside,” said Renatus, pressing a button on the electrobinoculars, “Judging by what the radiation sensors can pick up, the whole compound is running on minimal power. Most of the security protocols should be shut down.”

“Security protocols?” said Aria.

“Ground and tower turrets unmanned and offline, the majority of security droids shut down to avoid possible attacks on assembly members…that sort of thing.”

He held the electrobinoculars over to her and then motioned up at the relay towers, “Only five up on the relay towers,” he said, as Aria looked through the electrobinoculars herself.

Aria watched as the small figure of a red-clad guard walked around the maintenance platform of a relay tower. “That’s still a problem,” she said, handing the electrobinoculars back to Renatus and frowning.

“Not as much as you’d think,” said Renatus. He clicked his tongue and suddenly the two seeker droids perched on Aria’s shoulders jerked to life and leapt off, hovering at about eye-level. One droid buzzed forward and nuzzled its slightly-flattened-dome-body against Renatus’s face, its spidery little limbs tugging at the hood of his black jacket, as the other seeker droid eagerly started darting around, even swooping down between Renatus’s leg. “Settle down—-” Renatus said, and both droids bumped into each other floating in front of him, “We’re on a mission, all right? We can play later.” He pressed several buttons on the elecrobinoculars, then pulled an elastic-looking chord out of the electrobinoculars and plugged it into a small jack on one of the seeker droids. The little red photoreceptor at the front of the seeker droid turned orange for several seconds, and Aria noticed that the photoreceptor of the other droid had turned orange as well even though it wasn’t plugged into the electrobinoculars, then the plugged-in droid chirruped and the photoreceptors of both droids turned red again.

“You get all that?” Renatus said, unplugging the electrobinocular chord from the droid. Both droids chirruped again. “Good,” said Renatus, “I need you guys to knock out their eyes on the relay towers. Just stunning should be necessary. Try not to let them fall of the platforms. We don’t want a mess.”

The droids beeped affirmatively and shot off, their red photoreceptors shrinking into the night.

“They’re brothers,” Renatus said, “Triplets… originally… one of them got destroyed when I was helping Cyp out at the temple.”

“One sees what the other sees,” said Aria, watching after them.

“Oh—yes. Getting them to be able to do that without needing a physical jack every time was… difficult. Wreaked havoc on their AI. Had to cannibalize a BX droid’s brain just to get the hardware to stabilize the damn things and you have _no idea_ how hard it is to get BX parts, let alone a brain.”

“BX?” Aria looked at him, “The commando droids?”

“Yes, suffice it to say, the army of the Republic left quite the scrap yards in their wake, and more than a bit of a black market for battle droid parts rose with that,” he smiled, “How do you think I got so good at fiddling around with them?” He looked through the electrobinoculars back at the palace again. “Two….three…Come on, S4ZA.”

“Sforza?” Aria tilted her head.

“S-4-Z-A,” he handed the electrobinoculars over to her, “And this one’s Threevee.” Aria watched as the seeker droid, showing up only as the dim red glow of a photoreceptor even through the enhanced night vision of the electrobinoculars, floated up behind one of the red-clad guards. There was a faint blue light and the guard fell flat on the relay tower platform. “And that’s five,” said Renatus, standing up, “Come along. We’ve got a few minutes, tops.”

They ran forward to the main courtyard of the estate. Renatus tripped over a large rose-dotted vine that spidered over the pathway and sighed, looking over the rest of the gardens. “Barbarians.”

“They’re just doing their job,” said Aria.

“Yes but they must have shut down the gardening droids. If they’re going to occupy one of the finest Serenno Count palaces the least they could bloody do is take care of it.” 

Aria rolled her eyes and took Renatus’s wrist, running toward the main building of the palace. Aria stopped abruptly at the high pitched sound of a blaster warming up. 

“Who are you?” A red-clad Serenno Assembly guard was behind them. Aria’s eyes flicked to Renatus’ hands, nervously hovering over the blaster at his side. “Why have you come here? Present authorization immediately or you will be—”

Aria turned on her heel and waved her hand. “You don’t need to see our authorization.”

The guard lowered his blaster rifle. “I don’t need to see your authorization.”

Aria waved her hand again. “There’s been unusual activity at the southernmost perimeter. You need to check it out.”

“Unusual…activity…” the guard repeated her words.

Aria waved her hand once more. “You’ll need backup. Bring any available guards with you.”

“I’ll need backup,” the guard said, turning around and walking away from Aria and Renatus. Renatus leaned toward Aria. 

“Tell him to shut down any additional surveillance and security systems,” he whispered.

Aria nodded. “Surveillance and security tech is obscuring the activity. Shut it down.”

“I will shut down any surveillance and security,” the guard said, disappearing among the mess of overgrown roses of Dooku’s garden.

Once his footsteps faded into silence, Renatus nudged Aria, grinning. “You’re very good at that.”

“Thank you,” said Aria. Renatus nodded his head toward Threevee. “Scan the door. Make sure opening it won’t set anything off.”

The seeker droid chirruped and scanned the door, then beeped and whirled around Renatus and Aria and Renatus opened the door and gestured to Aria. “After you.”

Aria smiled and stepped into the main building of the palace. S4ZA’s’s headlamp automatically turned on upon entering the dark palace, but it wasn’t really impressive. It was enormous, sure, but Aria wasn’t sure what she wasn’t expecting when she walked in. A part of her wished she could be impressed and even intimidated or terrified by the interior of a Sith Lord’s estate but it was so… simple and sad. Everything was covered with white or sheer plastic sheets to keep dust off, the nicer paintings had the pale bluish glow of a low-energy holo-field around them. Count Dooku was dead, and in the end, hardly anyone cared about the art or artifacts or history he owned—or maybe no one wanted to cross the Assembly of Serenno over their ownership. Something stung in the pit of Aria’s stomach and in the back of her mind, wondering if the preservation of history was only a pursuit of the privileged and vain and those who had the resources to care for it and if in the end it was only a passing fancy or a hobby and would only be left to collect dust. Renatus walked ahead of her and yanked one of the white sheets off of a large statue in the center of the palace’s foyer.

“Take a good look, Lady Aria,” he said, gesturing at the statue. It was a marble carving of a bith clothed in voluminous cloaks with a cybernetic respiration system. “Stars know what will happen to it once the Empire takes hold of this place.”

Aria walked around the statue, “Darth Tenebrous?”

Renatus continued walking past the statue. “As I’ve said, Serenno doesn’t regard Jedi with the same heroism as the rest of the galaxy.”

“But you make art of the Sith,” said Aria, walking after him.

“Artists can appreciate the sentiment of passion over peace,” said Renatus.

Aria walked faster. Renatus, like much of the galaxy, was taller than her, and as such required fast walking in order to keep up with him. “Do you… appreciate the Sith?” S4ZA’s flashlight was casting massive shadows on the wall. Most of the windows of the palace were tinted green, making whatever moonlight made it through the tinting dim and sickly. 

Renatus shrugged, “I honestly find them rather stupid—-I mean…only two? Two who are destined to inevitably have one destroy the other? If I wanted to form a force-sensitive order with philosophies of consolidating power, I wouldn’t limit it to one disciple and I wouldn’t tell my disciple that it’s his duty to kill me if I start getting soft or old or something.” He felt Aria’s eyes on him and immediately picked up on her skepticism, S4ZA hovered over and presented him with a small object in one of its pincers, but he shook his head and waved it off, “I only know all this from what we salvaged from your archives—-you know it too, I assume?”

“Yes,” said Aria, “One would argue that underestimating the Sith because of the Rule of Two is part of that rule’s advantage.”

“‘One’ would argue or _you_ would argue?”

Aria smiled and Threevee’s flashlight cast a light over her face, revealing more pain in her smile, “Considering what’s happened to my order, I’m not about to make a habit of underestimating any enemies of the Jedi,” she said, before walking forward.

“And yet here you walk in the halls of one of the Jedi’s greatest enemies,” said Renatus.

“Not alone,” said Aria.

Renatus stopped walking for a few moments and then grinned and quickly caught up with her and walked alongside her. “No, not alone,” he said. There was a wonder in his words that pained and cheered Aria up at the same time. An alarmed chirp came from around a corner and Threevee suddenly burst out, rushing toward them.

“Calm down!” Renatus said as Threevee flew around them in a beeping panic, “There’s nothing to—” he fell quiet at the sound of metal on marble and his hand instantly went to the blade at his side as the MagnaGuard droid paced around the corner. Aria had only seen pictures of MagnaGuard droids in archives and some dispatches on the Separatist movements. On holos they reminded her a bit of skeletons with cloth mantles, but in person they were far bigger, broad-shouldered, and of course, swinging around a nasty looking electrostaff. Aria instinctively ignited her lightsaber.

“Wait!” Renatus held a hand out to her, “It’s probably best if you not leave any…lightsaber marks…here. I can handle it.”

Aria furrowed her brow, then sheathed the lightsaber’s blades. “If you say so—” She started to say but both were forced to take several steps back as the MagnaGuard took two steps forward and swung at both of them with its electrostaff.

“Oh…you’re beautiful…” Renatus said as the droid threateningly spun its staff toward them and stamped down its metal treads.

“Renatus,” said Aria, an edge of wariness in her voice.

“It’s the IG-100 series though—“ Renatus was cut off as the droid took a swipe at him with the staff, it grazed his upper arm and he stumbled back, “Oh they _are_ fast.” 

_“Renatus,”_ Aria said.  
“Right, sorry,” Renatus stepped forward and drew his sword then drew a shorter vibroblade dagger. Aria had never seen Renatus fight, and a part of her wanted him to stand off to the side while she took care of the MagnaGuard, but the order had taught her not to underestimate non-Jedi warriors, and Renatus’s footwork clearly indicated plenty of discipline and training, even if it was a bit more light-footed than the Jedi. She also had second guesses about leaving lightsaber marks around the place—Using the lightsaber on a freighter that would end up wrecked was one thing, using it in a palace that would likely be crawling with Imperials in a few days was another thing entirely.

Renatus approached the droid and was first easily kept at some distance as it threateningly swung its lightning staff at him. He whistled and clicked his tongue twice and S4ZA and Threevee quickly buzzed to his aid. S4ZA shot forward and the MagnaGuard instinctively swung at it with one end of its electrostaff, the little seeker droid dipped just out of reach as Threevee released some bright sparks from its pincers, causing the MagnaGuard to jerk before it whirled around and swept at Threevee, granting Renatus a brief opening. Renatus moved quickly, dipped low then dug his sword in the upper-middle of the MagnaGuard’s back, then Threevee landed on the MagnaGuard’s shoulder and pinched and sparked at the neck of the droid until Renatus shifted the position of the sword and it finally pierced through to the front of the Magnaguard. It sank to its knees, the light of its photoreceptors fading to black.

“Is it powered down?” said Renatus, thumbing a switch on the handle of his vibroblade so it started humming. S4ZA beeped affirmatively and Renatus put a stabilizing hand on the Magnaguard’s head then ran the vibroblade through the MagnaGuard’s neck axis. He stumbled back at the sudden blast of sparks. “You said it was powered down! Ah!” The Magnaguard staggered to its feet and swung at Renatus with its electrostaff, its head hanging on by a few wires and the stump of its neck sporadically firing off sparks. The droid was staggering, the partial removal of its head causing most of the data it could take in through its photoreceptors to upset the entire droid’s balance. It swung around at them with the electrostaff half-blindly for a few seconds before Threevee affixed itself to where the Magnaguard’s spinal column met its pelvic axis and began furiously sparking and clipping at it with its pincers. Aria was through taking chances though, and ignited her lightsaber and jammed one of its blades through the MagnaGuard’s chest plate. This seemed to finally bring the thing down.

“The auxiliary droid brain,” Renatus said, kneeling at the fallen droid and drawing his vibroblade and quickly severing the head completely, “I forgot the IG-100 models have the auxiliary droid brain.” He used the vibroblade to make a small, perfectly circular hole then gingerly reached in, avoiding the smoking sides of the hole and pried out the droid’s brain. With some effort he then turned over the droid and did a similar action to the lower back of the droid and yanked out the auxiliary brain. He wrapped both brains in cloth and stuffed them in his bag, then stood up and dusted himself off slightly. “What?” he said, glancing up at Aria

“You’re bleeding,” said Aria.

“Hm?” The adrenaline from tangling with a magnaguard must have numbed the pain. Renatus glanced down at his upper left arm. The cloth of his sleeve was scorched and there was a row of blood and blisters.

“Should have gotten a nasty shock from that,” said Aria, pulling a bacta patch from the bag Renatus had lent her and handing it to him. 

“Insula-tex jacket lining,” said Renatus, applying the bacta patch then readjusting the collar on his jacket demonstratively, “Burns before it shocks. You work with droids as much as me you have to…” He watched as Aria put a hand over the bacta patch and closed her eyes. “What are you—oh…” he trailed off and Aria removed her hand, “I didn’t know Jedi could heal.”

“It’s not healed. It’ll need rest and some ease for the next few days like any other injury. If we had more time I could heal it, but I’ve only eased the pain for a few hours.” 

“More than I’ll need,” said Renatus, bending and unbending his arm. He glanced back at the MagnaGuard, “S4ZA, disassemble the chest plate. Try and make that stab pass for blaster fire if you can. See if you can find some ionization buffers and oscillators and any kind of receiver that may have turned the damn thing on when we got here. Rendezvous at the study.” The droid chirped and set to work on the fallen MagnaGuard and Renatus straightened himself up and started walking. He glanced over his shoulder at Aria, “We really ought to keep moving.”

Aria followed him. “I’m guessing this isn’t your first time here.”

“Oh far from it,” said Renatus as they reached a large dark staircase and began ascending it, “Dooku did everything he could to keep the Grand Assembly on his side—-propaganda, threats, baiting rival counts against each other, the odd bit of blackmail, rumored assassinations but nothing anyone can prove—name a count and there’s a story. My father’s loyalty—or I suppose rather his tolerance, was one of the more easily won—a few lavish dinners and numerous droid ‘gifts’ to replace his human estate staff and my father was in his pocket, grumbling all the while.”

Aria stopped walking, watching as the holo-fields around the paintings on the wall cast blue lights onto Renatus. “You’ve dined with Count Dooku?”

He laughed sheepishly, “Not _with_ him just… do…uh…do the Jedi have a concept of a ‘Kid’s Table?’”

“Well the temple refectory did have a section and specialized meals for younglings when they—oh—I understand.”

“So I was able to visit this estate a few times before, once the clone wars kicked off into high gear though Dooku’s estate closed down to most of the Assembly and tended to host more off-worlder diplomats, heads of mercenary groups, droid corporation heads, what have you. Still, when I was here I made a point of sneaking off and exploring as much as I could—-” He suddenly stopped and grabbed Aria’s hand and pulled her behind a column as boot steps started echoing down the hall. A guard was speaking into a comm.

“Look, all I know is that five of the guards aren’t reporting in and the rest of the contingent is checking out a possible breach at the border—-probably another stupid animal.”

Renatus put a finger to his lips then motioned to Threevee, who silently drifted after the guardsman.

“I don’t know! The Assembly’s running around like a si-hen with its head cut off and the Repub—the Empire’s probably going to be bringing in off-world replacements in a couple days—ugh, fine, okay. Copy. I’ll do another search and get back to you. Over and out.” Renatus gave a single nod to the droid and it fired off a blue ring. “What the—” the guard was able to say before he was hit by the stun and fell to the ground. Renatus nodded to Aria and they continued up the stairs and down a corridor until Renatus opened a door and walked into a room that reminded Aria of a miniature and heavily compacted version of the Jedi archives, though it definitely didn’t have the same familiarity and comfort of the archives. She could feel the Force strongly here, more strongly than any other part of the estate. “This is one of those places you wandered off to, isn’t it?” she said, looking around.

“When I was young I had… a vision in here,” said Renatus.

“A vision?”

“I saw myself and… a figure…opening a door that wasn’t there before…there were four red triangles, and then I saw a crystal but…the vision faded and then my father found me and dragged me off…but I still think that vision meant something,” he trailed off as they walked around the study, “Or maybe I just dearly wished I was special and I could find a way out.”

Aria touched his shoulder, “For what it’s worth I happen to think you’re quite special,” she said, before walking past him, trying to feel the room through the force.

Renatus blinked a few times then spoke after her, “Was that a mind trick?”

“What?” there was a slight laugh in Aria’s voice, “No—-why would you think that?”

“Nothing just….that was… affecting.”

Aria didn’t really know what to say to that. She cleared her throat, “Well it wasn’t. Let’s find your door, shall we?” she said as she turned her attention back to the study, which, like the rest of the palace bordered on cavernous. There was another door leading to an inner office of the study, which featured a large desk and a large window looking out on the overgrown courtyard. She stopped walking and her breath caught in her throat. She walked forward very quickly toward a section of shelves that wasn’t filled with datafiles but instead had the faint glow of a holofield around it. She glanced off to the side to see the holofield’s switch and turned it off. “Threevee?” she glanced over to the little seeker droid hovering just behind Renatus, “Can I get some light over here?” The droid buzzed over with it’s head lamp.

“Find something interesting?” Renatus called after her.

"He has books!" Aria said, pulling one off the shelf, " _Paper_ books!”

"Serennoan counts have a proclivity for the old fashioned and impractical," said Renatus as he watched Aria flip open the book and smell it, "They're meant to be read, you know."

"You're not old-fashioned," said Aria, flipping through the book.

"We can fly dozens of light years in a matter of minutes and I'm still running around with a sword--- not a laser sword, mind, a sword sword."

Aria glanced at Renatus’s belt, ”And a blaster," she added.

"You say that like I know what to do with the bloody thing. I really don't. I'm not like your Mandalorian friend. I'm not a…” he gestured upward, “…battle-scarred 6-foot tall slice of bantha beefcake." 

Aria snorted and giggled. "You think Val's handsome?"

"Lady Aria, Serennoans live, kill, and die for beauty and aesthetics. To say Val is not handsome would be a disservice to my heritage," he paused, "I mean... barring the silly hair color.” 

"I kind of like it," said Aria, setting the book back on the shelf and walking over to a desk, "You know, if you fancy him, I'd be happy to put in a good word for you."

"I don't think I'm his type," said Renatus, "What about you?"

"What about me?” said Aria digging through the desk but finding little but spare datapad styluses and a box of seashells. It struck her as strange that he would have a box of something of no apparent value, she wondered if he had held onto the box for sentiment’s sake, which seemed out of character for a Sith Lord but then again they were supposedly more given to their emotions than Jedi—perhaps sentiment was one of those passions.

"What are your feelings about him?” said Renatus.

Aria smiled and took a seashell out of the box, turning it over in her hands. ”I'm fond of him. He's good to have on your side in a fight, he's funny, and... I think he does care about things a lot more than he tries to let on... It's just very easy to feel helpless with the way the galaxy is going.” She set the seashell back in its box.

"That's it?” Renatus said as Aria walked away from the desk.

"Should there be more?” said Aria, feeling along the walls of the study. Renatus was right. There was definitely something in the force in the room, some switch that hadn’t been flipped, some trigger waiting to be pulled.

"He turned down a 10,000 credit bounty for you and you saved his life when you had every reason not to trust him--- that usually implies there's more.” Renatus joined her in searching around the study. 

Aria shrugged and withdrew her hand from the wall, "If there is more then it's irrelevant-- I'm a Jedi."

"But is it irrelevant?” Renatus said, taking several datafiles from their shelf and tucking them into his bag. 

Aria rolled her eyes slightly at the fact that he was still pursuing the subject, then felt slightly guilty and was glad she wasn’t facing him "Romantic attachments are generally discouraged--- Jedi are not meant to place too much value into one relationship."

"But Cyp is your best friend--- is that not putting one relationship over others?” 

"One could argue the same thing for the master-Padawan bond. Jedi aren't strangers to close relationships--two of our masters were twin sisters and fought every battle side by side.” Until one of them died in front of the other. 

"But not romantic relationships?"

"Those tend to be more... Compromising."

“Says who?”

“Says centuries of Jedi tradition.” Renatus scoffed at this and Aria smiled again, though her sadness and bitterness was less hidden with this smile. “Which… I know is overwhelmingly human-centric in regards to the perception of relationships—-and I certainly don’t feel right saying this relationship on this planet is exactly the same as that relationship on that planet and that both are discouraged by the order but…” Aria’s mouth thinned to a conflicted line and she trailed off.

There was a gap of silence before Renatus spoke. “It’s scary, isn’t it?” he said quietly.

“We’re in a Sith lord’s palace,” Aria said, “Of course it’s—”

“I mean the people who would usually tell you ‘No’ not being there anymore. Being able to test the rules you’ve always questioned—-you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t question them. I was in the same position after my father died—-”

“The Jedi Order is _not_ your father!” Aria’s voice was louder than she meant it to be. Threevee’s headlamp briefly cast a light on Renatus’s face and Aria’s stomach turned with guilt.

“No, it’s not,” said Renatus, “I’m sorry—That was inappropriate.” He bit his lip, “But—you’re not alone, Aria. You said it to me now I say it to you.” 

Aria ran a hand through her hair. She felt her own exhaustion prowling outside her conscious mind like a beast behind glass. What were they even doing here? She kept telling herself they would find something useful—that there had to be something that could help them, that now would be the only time that they could look through the palace of one of the greatest threats to the Republic—to try and find something, save something, use something that could help them before the Empire could come to Serenno and take everything, but a part of her felt like she was running—like all she had was running and all she could do to keep the nightmares behind her was to keep running even if that meant running into new nightmares. Truth be told she couldn’t exactly blame Renatus for seeing a possible kindred spirit in her.

“It’s fine—-I shouldn’t have—-I know the Jedi Order isn’t—-wasn’t as good as we—as I always wanted to believe it was,” she sighed, pressed a hand to her forehead and said, “I don’t even know what I’m doing here anymore.”

“We’re looking for synth crystals—” Renatus started to say.

“I mean alive,” Aria said. It slipped out of her and the fact that she had finally said it aloud made her stomach drop. Then it all came pouring out of her. “I can’t—I’m not a good enough Jedi to keep the Order alive, to bring it back. I’m not… I don’t even know if I’m strong enough to protect my friends.” She felt the urge to cry burning in the back of her throat again but she kept it down, then suddenly it felt as if the room dropped several degrees in temperature, and there was a series of clunking noises in the wall.

“Did you hear that?” said Renatus.

“Do you _feel_ that?” said Aria.

“I…” Renatus put a hand to his forehead, “I feel something…” They glanced back over at the old bookshelf. “There,” Renatus said. Something close to a smile tugged at the corner of Aria’s mouth. She extended a hand toward the bookcase and closed her eyes. “There’s a mechanism…I can see it.” The wood of the bookcase creaked and shuddered. Several books fell to the floor and Aria stopped and had to get her breathing back under control. When she opened her eyes, the bookcase was still there, though now with several books littered on the floor. “I just need to activate the mechanism—” she said, more to herself than to Renatus. Her fingers wrung and a bead of sweat dropped down the side of her temple when she withdrew again and had to catch her breath. “It’s just…stubborn…” 

“It probably needs two…” said Renatus.

“Two—-two! Of course! Your vision! One person can’t open it—I need you to use the force—have you ever done it before? Moved something with your mind?”

“I tried, as I’ve said before my Force abilities weren’t exactly… encouraged.”

“It’s fine, you can do it, just reach out like this and close your eyes,” Renatus did as he was instructed. Aria put one hand on his shoulder and held her hand out as well, closing her eyes. “Now, just imagine the mechanism—-you can feel it behind the wall—-just reach out with your mind and take a hold on it, okay?”

Renatus’s fingers twitched. “I think… I think I have it.”

“Okay, now I need you to try pushing it with your mind, just envision it—”

There was an even louder clunking sound and the bookshelf suddenly shuddered again, more books falling from it. Aria half-gasped and half-laughed, “You’re doing it!” she said, before she quickly re-focused her concentration. It was a lock, a large lock, not an electronic one, but one of the really old ones, with tumblers and weights. There was another series of turning and the sound of metal fitting into metal and the bookcases shuddered once more before suddenly splitting open, revealing a dark stairway. Renatus glanced back at Aria and a laugh that was equal parts excited and scared escaped them as they quickly descended the stairs. 

The stairs led down to a small, hot, chamber. There was little light in the room save for a red glow shining through slits in the walls. Renatus pulled off his jacket and Aria flipped a switch and a cold blue holofield activated on the opposite end of the room, illuminating a wall of empty pegs on dark blue velvet. Aria stepped toward it then heard something crack and slide against the floor underneath her boot. She glanced down and lifted her foot to see a broken strand of silka beads. She picked it up.

“What do you have there?” said Renatus.

“Padawan braid—-well…beads…but…” she trailed off and tucked them into her pocket, then glanced up at the bare wall, “It must have been his trophy room.” She bit the inside of her lip. So there was no way they were going to find any kyber crystals here.

“Until he had to give all those lightsabers to Grievous and other enemies of the Jedi,” said Renatus, “But…” he put a hand on her shoulder and gently turned her toward a dark corner that was giving off a soft red light, “I think it’s a lot more than a trophy room.” Sitting in the corner like a large, sleeping monster, was a construct of four dark pyramids veined with red, one resting upside-down above the other, with the other two serving as secondary anvils flanking the sides with their points converging in that same middle.

“That’s a geological compressor,” said Aria.

“Yes it is,” said Renatus.

“That is a geological compressor,” Aria said again.

“Mm-hm,” Renatus nodded.

Aria suddenly seized Renatus by the shoulders, “ _That is a geological compressor!_ ” she said, trying not to shake him but failing a little.

“Want to see if it still works?” said Renatus.

“We shouldn’t—-I mean—-well it would be very useful to know how they work in case we have to build our own but it would have to be much less…” she gestured vaguely in the direction of the compressor, “Sith-ish…”

“But a test run?” Renatus said, smiling.

“Yes—-a test run…” Aria was fidgeting with her hands, “Raw materials—carbon—we’ll need carbon…” she paused, “Wait right here.”

She raced up the stairs back into the study and went to Count Dooku’s desk. “Of course you wouldn’t be keeping these out of pure sentiment,” she muttered as she pulled the box of seashells out of the desk. There was a series of panicked chirrups and S4ZA shot into the study. The droid buzzed around her, beeping loudly and even butting itself against her shoulder trying to make her move toward the door of the study. “Look I don’t understand your… beeping. Just come along, you silly thing,” she said as she moved back to the dark stairway. 

S4ZA did not stop beeping as Aria descended the stairs back into the chamber of the geo-compressor. By the time she reached the bottom, S4ZA flew up to Renatus, still beeping urgently.

“Oh no…” said Renatus.

“What?” said Aria.

Renatus grabbed her wrist, “The guards are returning from the estate’s borders. They probably already know something’s wrong. We need to get out of here—”

“Not without a crystal!” said Aria, “You said it yourself—-this is probably the only time we can do anything here—-I can’t leave empty-handed.”

Renatus glanced down at the box of seashells, “You’ll need more than that—-it’s a compressor.”  
“Fine,” said Aria, igniting her lightsaber. She went over to a one of the stone walls and made a large slash in the wall, then dug underneath it until a large chunk of smoldering ferrocrete fell out of the wall, “Just try and get that thing started.”

“It’ll take two—-” Renatus started to say.

“Fine. We’ll work together,” said Aria, sheathing her lightsaber. Renatus handed her his jacket and she used it to pick up the smoldering bit of ferrocrete and put it in the box, “Wait—-” she pulled the silka beads from her pocket and put them in the box as well. “Okay,” she said, she closed her eyes and held the box aloft with the Force.

“Moving raw materials to the convergence,” said Renatus, holding his hands out to the box. Aria opened her eyes and together they guided the floating box between the points of the four pyramids. Aria released her grip on the box and it floated there, between the four points. She paused, “I don’t…I don’t feel a mechanism to activate,” she said, moving around the compressor. 

“It doesn’t feel like there’s anything to push so much as…something to be fed,” said Renatus. He extended his hands toward the geological compressor and a weak red spark suddenly fired off from one of the pyramids. The noise made him flinch back for a second.

“How did you do that?” said Aria. 

“I didn’t do it on purpose! I just…lost my focus and thought of my father for a second and—-” another couple of red sparks fired off from the pyramids.

“Pain,” said Aria, “It reacts to pain.”

She closed her eyes and extended her hands toward the compressor again. More sparks started firing off between the pyramids, catching the box on fire but keeping the beads, the seashells, and the ferrocrete all suspended and floating. More sparks fired off and they blackened.

“Are you sure you should—-?” Renatus said but now a steady stream of red lightning was converging on the small group of raw materials from all four points.

“It’s not strong enough,” said Aria. Her eyes flicked to Renatus, “I can’t ask you to—-”

“You don’t have to,” said Renatus, extending his hands toward the compressor and closing his eyes. The four pyramid-shaped anvils now fired off white electricity and the mass between them went molten and then white-hot as well. The mass started rotating in the air and then the anvils shifted. Aria and Renatus made eye contact and both knew what to do. Aria twisted her wrist outward and the four pyramids converged on the white-hot mass, which in turn shrank and brightened in the onslaught of lightning. The mass suddenly started to make a screeching noise, something between metal scraping against metal and glass being crushed against glass, then there came a thunderous sound and suddenly the red veins in the four anvils dimmed and started coming apart, leaving a bright white object in the center that cooled to molten orange. Aria used the force to take ahold of it and bring it out of the compressor. It was about the size of two thumbs put together, much larger than optimum size for a lightsaber, but then again, so was the kyber crystal for Aria’s saberstaff. S4ZA and Threevee were floating around, beeping anxiously as Aria kept the molten crystal levitating in front of her. “Ready to go?” she said to Renatus.

“I never go anywhere without an exit plan,” said Renatus with a smile, covering the lower half of his face with a black scarf.

They ascended the stairs back into the study and moved to head out to the palace corridors. As they opened the door, however, they saw the same guard that Threevee had stunned earlier.

“You—who are you!?” He pointed a blaster rifle at them, “I’m taking you in for…” he paused and looked at the crystal that Aria kept hovering in front of her. “Wh—how are you doing tha—.”

Renatus took the blaster off his belt and stunned the guard in a swift, panicked movement and the guard dropped to the floor in front of them. Renatus dropped down to the guard and rifled through his jacket to find a comm. Holograms of guards were coming in and out, shouting “Perrek, report!” Renatus pulled a small multitool from his pocket, cut the comm open like a Corellian clam, snipped two of the wires, and closed it shut again then activated it.

_“Perrek? Perrek report! I can’t see your holo!”_

Renatus cleared his throat and did his best impression of the guard. “I was attacked by intruders. My comm was damaged.” They could hear guards of the Assembly moving around through the hallways. Aria kept the crystal hovering above her palm. She could still feel the heat from the forge from it. They made it to the main hall only to see the doors burst open and several blasters mounted with tactical lights shined into the main hall.

 _“Perrek you keep cutting out and I can’t get your location—-”_ the guardsman was saying over the holo as Renatus and Aria raced away from the main hall. 

“I’m—I’m in pursuit of two intruders!” Renatus said over the comm. They took the west exit of the main building and they’re heading back toward the woods.” Renatus rifled into his pockets again and pulled out a small remote control, “Wait,” he said dramatically, “I think I see something!” he hit a button on the control and Aria heard a distant boom. Renatus then dropped the comm and stepped on it. There was a clattering noise and shouting down the hall.

“Perrek’s feed just cut out completely”

“Mikuchi is reporting a column of smoke from the woods!” 

“Regroup at the woods, go!”

“What was that?” said Aria.

“Plan 1 is out,” said Renatus, quickly turning on his heel and racing down the corridor in the opposite direction, “Can’t go back the way we came.”

“What?”

“I blew up my speeder bike.”

“You just blew it up!?” Aria hissed, then paused, “Wait, that thing was rigged to explode?”

“Only if Exit Plan 1 failed and it was necessary, yes,” Renatus looked sheepish, “I…probably should have mentioned the explosives.”

“Yes you should have!” said Aria, “Is there a Plan 2?”

Renatus thought for a moment. “Come on.”

They reached an elevator where Threevee hacked into a terminal to grant temporary power to the lift, and they descended to even lower levels. As they stood in the slightly claustrophobic elevator, Renatus pulled a rag from his bag and handed it over to Aria, who wrapped the now cooling synth crystal up and stuffed it in her own bag. The doors of the elevator opened and Aria saw that they had reached a garage level. Renatus ran ahead of her.

“They wouldn’t just leave his ships here!” Aria called after him.

“Ships? No, I just need to get back to my ship,” said Renatus. Aria heard a click and the sounds of sparks firing off and ran after Renatus. She looked around a corner of the garage to find him hot-wiring a Geonosian speeder bike. He activated the maglift suspension and it hovered and hummed about a foot off the floor. He dusted off the seat and mounted the bike, then motioned to her and she got on behind him. Threevee and S4ZA positioned themselves on her shoulders and Renatus adjusted himself in his seat slightly. “Cushy,” he said.

“Renatus,” said Aria.

“Right,” he said and they took off out of the garage.

—-

“I can’t wake him, you wake him!” Tepui’s whisper hissed slightly.

“Nuh-uh—-this was your idea!”

“Ugh, fine.”

Cyp felt a small hand shake his shoulder and his eyes opened. “Whuzzit—-g’morning…” he said drifting back off before Tepui shook his shoulder again and he sat bolt upright, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” said Tepui and Cyp exhaled and pressed his face back into his pillow, “It’s just… we can’t find Master Aria.”

Cyp was out of bed in a moment. “Are you sure? Have you checked the gardens? Maybe the garage?”

Tepui put her hands on her hips, “This place is too _big._ We can barely keep track of Oda here.”

“He does like to wander, doesn’t he?” said Cyp. He pulled on a pair of house slippers Renatus kept saying he had to wear around the villa, “We’ll look together. I’m sure she wouldn’t take off without…good…” Cyp trailed off at the sound of ship engines coming toward the villa and went to the window. The sun was rising and as always everything looked like it was on fire with the autumn colors. He breathed a sigh of relief as he finally caught sight of a familiar red ship. “It’s just Renatus,” he said, turning back to the younglings before catching himself and looking back out the window, “Wait—what?”

—-

The ship’s exhaust was a hot breeze across the Villa’s tarmac as the ship landed. Cyp was still in red pajamas and now a robe as the entry ramp touched down. Aria tore out of the ship, charged down the ramp and flung her arms around him. “You’re not going to believe it, Cyp!” she said.

“Believe…what?” said Cyp as she broke away from him and went through the small bag at her side. She reached into her bag and pulled out a small object wrapped up in cloth. He unwrapped it, feeling an unnatural warmth from it. He looked at the object in his hand and then back up at Aria. “I don’t believe it,” he said.


	8. A Meditation on Light

_Close your eyes. Find your center. Eyelashes. No, focus. Crystal. Breathe in the Force. Exhale distractions. Lips. Stop it. Let the Force flow through you. Focus on the crystal. Jawline. Neck. Crystal. Collarbone. Close your eyes again. Idiot. Think of something else. Fires at the temple. No. Not that. It’s okay. You can do this. Just relax._ Cyp breathed in and out then opened his eyes. Aria was sitting across him, the picture of Jedi tranquility, legs folded lotus-style and hands resting on her knees. The crystal floated between them—-Aria was doing the heavy lifting with the Force, she always did.

They sat out in the courtyard of the villa, with the sound of running water and the smell of flowers and wood and greenery filling their senses. He should be able to concentrate, to lose himself in the moment. He wasn’t sure what they were doing—finding kyber crystals in a cave was one thing, imbuing a crystal with the force was another, and something so far outside what had been taught to Jedi initiates that some guilt or fear or confusion was turning his gut into knots. How could he imbue a crystal with light and hope if he had so much trouble finding those things in his own mind? He wasn’t even a Jedi, so who was Aria kidding keeping him around for this? No, he couldn’t think like that. He couldn’t let her down. He just had to focus, that was it. Just close his eyes, clear out all distractions, imagine a still ocean reflecting endless stars overhead. Breathe in and—-

“Cyp?”

‘What?” it came out harsher than he meant, and it caught her off guard enough for the crystal to waver and shudder in mid-air before returning to its still, slowly rotating state. He immediately regretted letting it come out like that and ran a hand through his hair, “Sorry, what?”

“You’re…” Aria started then trailed off, then held her hand underneath the crystal and let it fall into her palm, “Is something bothering you?” She caught herself, “I’m sorry, that’s a stupid question what with…everything.”

“It’s not stupid,” said Cyp, “I don’t know why you need me around,” he said, flopping back in the grass, “I mean, you seem to know what you’re doing.”

“Oh, I don’t know what I’m doing,” said Aria, turning the crystal over in her hands with her fingers, smiling a bit sadly, “I probably know even less than you, archivist.”

“Heh…” Cyp brushed his hair back from his forehead and watched the clouds drift overhead.

“But I do need you here,” she said, getting out of the lotus position and moving to a slightly more comfortable seated position. 

“Huh?” Cyp sat up, “Wait, what do you mean?”

Aria blinked and then laughed a little, “Oh come on, Cyp, you know what I mean.”

“I don’t,” he said with unsettling sincerity. 

Aria reddened. Well, reddened wasn’t quite right. Cyp had seen her bleed before and noted that being part Umbaran, her blood was more…purple than most humans. Her blushing showed up as somewhere between between pink and lavender. “Oh—I—well you know you’re—you’ve always—You’re my friend.” 

“So… I’m here for moral support?” said Cyp.

“It’s not that simple—It’s just…I’m just…” she sighed, “You’re going to think I’m weird and obsessive.”

“I already know you’re weird,” he said before she shoved him in the shoulder, grinning, prompting a short laugh, “But seriously, I want to hear it.”

“Do you remember my first day at the temple?”

Cyp thought for a moment. “Yeah, you kept falling behind the group to look out windows.”

“I never saw light like on Coruscant,” said Aria, “Well…nothing like it on Umbara.”

“Oh yeah! And you started freaking out when the sun started setting like you were never going to see it again and you didn’t believe me when I said it would come back.”

“I was five and from a planet of eternal night,” Aria laughed a little, “I figured that’s how it was on _all_ planets and Coruscant was…correcting itself. But…you stayed up with me all night just to prove it to me. You didn’t have to do that, but you did.”

“I remember you nudging me awake several times and going ‘see? Still dark!,’” said Cyp, they both laughed a little, “And then when the sun was finally rising you started crying…” the laugh went out of his voice, “and…laughing… and hopping around. And you woke up all the other initiates early and everyone thought you were crazy.” 

“Yes well…I think…I always remembered more about my home planet than most of the other younglings—If only because it was just so…different…from the Jedi temple, the Jedi Order,” Aria glanced down at the crystal in her palm, then returned to her previous cross-legged lotus position and let it hover about an inch above her hand, “I wasn’t special. It was scary and new for all the initiates, a lot of them were missing their families, their planets…You just…get taken away by these robed strangers and put in with all of these other younglings…You can barely comprehend what you’re getting into but you…” her other hand mindlessly went up to the point on her shoulder where her padawan braid would have rested, then she seemed to remember what happened to her braid and the rest of her hair and let it drop back down again quickly, blushing slightly, “Up until that point, joining the Jedi order just meant getting away from Umbara for me. I didn’t really care if they would raise me to be a horrible lightsaber swinging fanatic the way they talked about Jedi back on Umbara—-all that mattered to me was getting off that miserable world. I didn’t think what I was getting into could be… good… until I met you.” She fidgeted a bit and the crystal drifted from her hand and then floated back between them, “You’re here for a lot more than moral support. The Force is still with you, regardless of whether or not you took the trials and…I need you here. I may not know what I’m doing but,” a weak giggle escaped her, “At least when you’re here I feel like I’m doing something right.” 

Cyp sat there, the words drying up in his throat and a storm of words banging against the inner walls of his skull. _Tell her. Tell her. Tell her you idiot. If there was any time to tell her it’s now. No, don’t ruin it. Don’t ruin this. Don’t ruin what you have._ “Thank you,” Cyp managed to press the words out of himself by tightening his stomach slightly. 

“My pleasure,” her response was equally stilted, more a reflex of politeness than a reflection of actually knowing what to do at this stage in a conversation. She cleared her throat then, reassumed her lotus position with her hands on her knees, closed her eyes, and the crystal drifted out of her palm and floated between them once more. She opened one gray eye at him, gauged his face, and didn’t feel right ending the conversation there, “Couldn’t ask for a better place to meditate, really,” she said, opening her other eye and looking around, “It’s peaceful.”

“Yeah,” Cyp said, assuming a kneeling position himself and closing his eyes, “It’s been a while since things have been this quiet…” His eyes were closed for a few seconds before it suddenly occurred to him why it was so quiet and they snapped open and he almost sprung to his feet, “The younglings! They’re—!”

“They’re fine,” Aria said, taking his hand before he rushed off, “I asked Val to look after them while we do this.”

“Oh…” Cyp said, settling back down slightly. He glanced down at her hand clasping on his and made eye contact with her. She realized she was still holding it and withdrew her hand and ran it through her hair, glancing off. He resumed his kneeling position and closed his eyes again before Aria’s words and the name fully impacted him, then he opened his eyes again, “Wait, you left them with the _Mandalorian?”_

“His name’s Val, and yes,” said Aria with an eye roll, “Oh don’t look at me like that Cyp. He’s perfectly capable of looking after a few younglings.”

—-

“Get off the turret—OFF MY TURRET. OFF,” Val yanked Galix by the back of his shirt out of the turret seat, “I said you could _look around_ the ship not—- _What are you doing!?”_ He said glancing over to see Tepui looking through his Holo projector, looking at holo-pictures of Val with a particularly dashing male Togruta in front of countless crystal formations, the holo was geofiltered with the words, ‘Visit Beautiful Cynda!’

“He’s pretty,” said Tepui before Val rushed over with Galix tossed over one shoulder and clicked the holo projector off before she could look through more projections. 

“Who told you you could look through my holos?” said Val, grabbing Tepui by the arm and leading her away from the projector while Galix protested at him in Ryl over his shoulder.

“You need stronger passwords, by the way,” said Tepui.

Val ran a hand through his hair before saying, “Okay new ground rules: No touching my giant guns, no pressing buttons in the cockpit, and _absolutely_ no looking through pictures of my exes. Understood?” 

Tepui gasped. “Why’d you break up with him? He was so pretty!” 

_“Understood?”_ Val set Galix down on the floor next to Tepui and drew himself up to his full height 

“Yes, Val,” Tepui and Galix suddenly said at the same time.

Val grunted frustratedly and glanced into the cockpit, looking out the viewport. “Why can’t you two be more like Oda? See, he’s sitting out there all well behaved…just…staring… into space… not blinking…” Val looked at Oda through the viewport and then back at Tepui and Galix, “Is he okay?”

Both the younglings shrugged. “He’s been weird ever since the temple,” said Galix.

“Okay…” Val glanced back out the viewport, “Did Aria say anything?”

“He walks away every time she tries to talk to him. He does that with everyone though,” said Galix.

“Yeah that’s not concerning at all,” said Val.

“It’s really concerning, actually,” said Tepui.

“I know I was being—” Val cut himself off and sighed and glanced out the viewport again, “Facetious…I’m going to try and talk to…” he trailed off as he saw Renatus walk into the garage and take a seat next to Oda on the bench and start talking to the young Rodian, “Okay…” Val said quietly.

Val headed down the entry ramp as Oda was sauntering away from Renatus, apparently a lot more cheerful than he had been before.

“Huh… What did you say to him?” said Val.

“Oh just that my chef droids just whipped up a batch of bofa fruit candies and that he got first pick.”

“What?” Galix piped up from the entry ramp to the ship.

Renatus gestured after Oda, “Candy. Kitchen. You two are welcome to some, too.”

Galix rushed after Oda to the door leading out of the garage and towards the villa kitchen. Tepui walked a bit more slowly off the entry ramp, keeping an eye on Renatus for a few seconds, before running after Galix. 

“I dunno if Aria is okay with the sweets,” said Val.

“Aria doesn’t have to know,” said Renatus elbowing Val slightly, scanning his face and then adding, “Oh come on, everything they’ve been through, they deserve some sweets.”

“I guess…” Val rubbed the back of his head, wondering how long Aria and Cyp would be still be calibrating the crystal with magic or whatever the hell Aria was talking about when the younglings would come back all hopped up on sugar.

“They’re cute,” Renatus said, as Tepui’s footsteps faded out of the garage, “No wonder the Jedi steal them from such a young age.”

Val really didn’t want to defend the Jedi but at the same time the words slipped out of him, “The Jedi don’t steal kids, the parents—-”

“I know,” Renatus said with a grin, before glancing over at the ship, “Just a joke,” he walked around Val’s ship, inspecting it, which made Val feel oddly self conscious about it. “Stathas class, right? You take good care of her. What’s her name?”

“Mom named her ‘Siyah,’” said Val.

“Any story behind that?” said Renatus, pressing a hand against the hydraulic column of the entry ramp, testing it slightly.

“Not really just, it would have been my name if I had been born a girl,” said Val, “Did…you need something?”

“I was seeing if you needed anything, actually. Word is, you’re leaving soon.”

“Tomorrow if everything goes according to plan,” said Val hauling up a crate, “Thanks for the food, by the way.” 

“You don’t have to, you know,” said Renatus, “I really don’t mind the company. You, Cyp, Aria, the younglings… The villa hasn’t been this exciting in ages.” 

“Look as… nice as everything is around here, it’s not really my speed,” said Val.

“Not your speed…” Renatus repeated after him.

“Mando thing,” said Val, “We’re not really super big on the… ‘completely dependent on another person for your wellbeing’ thing.” 

“Shame. We could use someone like you.”

“Use…for what, exactly?”

“The galaxy’s going to get a lot bloodier. Never hurts to have someone who knows his way around a blaster rifle and a ship.”

Val paused on the entryway of his ship, still holding the crate. “You’ve got three kids that you should keep as far away from any firefights as possible,” he said, frowning.

“Oh. Psh. Naturally,” said Renatus, “That’s where you would come in, of course. There’s only so much I can do with swords, and vibroblades and a couple of fancy droids. Plus Cyp’s told me 30 times that he’s not a Jedi, and Aria using her lightsaber—well…. that draws a lot of attention.” 

Val’s stomach turned. Renatus was right. Aria was safe here, well safer than she would be in most anywhere else in the galaxy, but it could just as easily turn into a place to be cornered. 

“So it’s an independence thing,” Renatus said, more to himself than to Val before saying, “Is it a money issue? I mean, I could take you on as a ‘security consultant’ if that would make you more comfortable. Only so many jobs droids can do, after all.” He glanced over Val’s ship, “Plus, your Siyah is more likely to blend in in more…colorful…environments. It could be useful for supply runs out of the system.”

For some reason the offer seemed to make Val’s stomach hurt even worse. He had thought of taking on some hired muscle work for other counts of Serenno before coming here, but doing it for Renatus felt off, wrong, almost. Maybe everything in his gut was just residual smuggler’s instinct—-the inability to cope with an environment of comfort, of luxury even, and the fact that Renatus was happy to pretty much solve all of his problems snagged him like a thorn.

“I’ll…um…I’ll think about it,” said Val, heading back up the ramp into the ship with the crate.


	9. Storm and Fury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Mandalorian, an archivist, a Jedi, and a Serennoan walk into a bar...

The weather cooled considerably as the day wore on, and the wind grew strong enough that it was enough to prompt Cyp out of the focus of meditation on the crystal to see large clouds and fog banks rolling over the gold and orange hills beyond the borders of the villa. He shivered a little, then remembered that Jedi must show resilience in the elements, and resumed his concentration. The sun was setting, though by that point it was so cloudy it was hard to tell, when the first raindrop landed on Cyp’s head. He looked over to Aria, her Umbaran blood granting her some slight resilience to the cold, as a light drizzle started. Again it wasn’t anything he couldn’t tolerate, it would soon pass, but within minutes then it was pouring, hard. Aria seemed deep in concentration that it wasn’t until thunder boomed in the distance that she suddenly seemed to snap out of it and let the crystal drop, catching it again. 

She and Cyp fled out of the gardens and back into the interior of the villa. It didn’t take long to find an equally quiet place in the villa to continue the meditation. Aria opened the door to what appeared to be a large gallery or ballroom or dining room with enormous windows being pelted with rain. Thunder cracked so loudly they both flinched a bit, even though the sound was a far cry from the sound of blasters. 

“Renatus did say the rains were coming in soon,” said Cyp, watching as the wind blew a sheet of rain against the glass. Thunder cracked again and Cyp glanced over at Aria to see a slightly strained expression on her face, “We can find someplace else—-”

“No,” Aria shook her head, “No, we’re almost done,” she held the crystal up to Cyp and he took it, feeling that same unnatural warmth, though there was another energy that seemed to vibrate within it. He wondered if it was the electricity in the air from all the lightning outside or the crystal itself making the hairs on his arm stand up on end. 

“You feel it, right?” said Aria, as Cyp handed the crystal back to her.

“Yeah…won’t be long now,” he said, turning and walking to the center of the marble floor and sitting down. He watched as she sat down across from him and used the Force to let the crystal float between them again. “Nervous?” he said.

“A bit…” said Aria, closing her eyes.

The rain continued hammering away at the glass, but in a way there was something calming about it. Cyp kept his eyes closed. Eventually all natural light from outside faded away, and the lights inside the great room rendered the windows black, only sparkling slightly with some condensation and with little droplets that managed to stay on the glass before being washed away and replaced. It took Cyp a while to realize the hall was getting unusually cold. He ignored that as he was able to ignore the light drizzle earlier—-big room, it was bound to be a bit drafty. It wasn’t until a shiver shook him and he opened his eyes before he realized the room had gotten cold enough to see his breath in, and then he realized the reddishness on the interior of his eyelids wasn’t from the lights within the room but from the crystal floating in front of him. “Aria,” he whispered, “Look.”

Aria opened her eyes and the facade of Jedi tranquility was completely wiped away by an expression of awe. The crystal had taken on both light and opalescence, and was shining colors all around the room, as if it were both a prism and a light source in one. 

“Woah…” Aria said, looking around the multicolored lights being shined around the room. She held her hand toward the crystal and withdrew it, still full of wonder, and no small amount of nervousness. “I’ve never felt the force more strongly in any natural kyber crystal…” she said softly. She suddenly grunted in pain and her hand went to her ear.

“What is it?” Cyp said.

“It’s nothing…just—ow. My ear—-probably something from the explosion back on Korbo’s…nnh!” She grunted again and put her hands over both her ears.

“I don’t hear any—ah!” Cyp suddenly started hearing a very high pitched noise. A spark suddenly flew off of the crystal. “What was that?” said Cyp, but suddenly the high pitched noise got even louder now and he clasped his hands over both his ears. Several more sparks flew off of the crystal.

“Something’s wrong,” Aria said, suddenly rising to her feet. The high pitched sound grew to a screech now and Cyp saw cracks running through the glass in the windows from the sound. Aria grunted in pain than desperately gestured upward, forcing the crystal to shoot up toward the high ceiling.

“What are you—-?!” Cyp said, holding out his hands to catch the crystal when it fell, but Aria was running, seizing him by his arm and yanking him toward the door out to the hallway as the sparking crystal started its descent. The crystal was still screaming. She half pulled him, half tackled him out the doorway when the crystal hit the marble. The sound was like a thunder crack, the roar of fire, and a scream all at once. The floor was shaking. Cyp and Aria landed on the floor of the hall with Cyp sprawling on his back and Aria’s shoulder punching against his ribs, knocking the wind out of him. Cyp managed to glance over his shoulder to see waves of fiery energy and bolts of lightning springing out, the glass of the windows shattering. And then it was over almost as quickly as it started, a smoldering spot in the marble floor still firing off a few weak sparks.

—-

Val was resting his eyes, his feet propped up on the worktable where he had been repairing his armor and customizing his helmet. The droids had whipped up dinner for him and the younglings, and in his short time at Renatus’ villa, he had found that having a full stomach could be exhausting—or maybe his body just wasn’t used to actual food and not running on rations bars and willpower. His mind teetered on the edge of unconsciousness, but his own wariness kept him from falling into darkness completely, and he stretched and readjusted himself slightly, half-tuning out Tepui and Galix’s sugar-fueled bickering in the background of the garage, when he heard the sound of an explosion. He fell out of his seat and then grabbed his blaster rifle in a matter of seconds, shouting at the younglings, “On the ship! On the ship now!”

“What was that—-!?” Galix started to say but Val was running toward the main building of the villa.

He paused at the doorway of the garage to say, “Get on the ship and stay there! _Hide!_ ” 

“But—” Galix started to say before Tepui grabbed his wrist and yanked him up the entry ramp. Val was running through the halls of the villa, shouting desperately, “Cyp! Aria! Someone’s set off a bomb! Come on, we’re getting out of here! Where—” He was cut off when he ran full-on into Renatus, who was also running and desperately tapping at a datapad. Renatus was knocked flat on the floor and Val paused only momentarily to yank him to his feet as Renatus kept saying, “The east wing! Security system says It was in the east wing!” They raced through another hallway to see Cyp standing in front of a doorway, not panicking but clearly shaken up.

“What happened?” Val said as they closed in on him, “Are you okay? Where’s Aria!? Is she—-” Val glanced over at the doorway to see Aria on her knees, slumped against the doorframe, staring into a wrecked ballroom.

“The crystal—it started—-I never thought it could—Aria she—-” Cyp was falling over his words.

“The crystal?” Val repeated after him. He looked around the room, then lowered his blaster rifle and slung it back up on his shoulder, “The crystal… did this?”

“Oh….this is going to be difficult to explain to the contractors…” said Renatus, looking around the ballroom. 

“I don’t get it, the crystal’s meant to…go in a lightsaber, right? But… they can explode?”

“They aren’t supposed to explode,” said Cyp, looking after Aria.

“Is she hur—” Val started then shook his head and spoke to Aria, “Are you hurt?” She didn’t respond. “Hey—you okay—?” Val reached forward to touch her shoulder and she flinched and whirled on him so fast that Val drew back.

“No—yes—I’m not hurt,” she said, pressing the tips of her fingers to her temple, “Stupid—I was stupid. It’s all…” she glanced back over into the room and then put her forehead against the doorway, “There’s so much—it’s all—I’m so sorry, Renatus. I’m so sorry for wrecking your home like this.”

“It’s only a ballroom,” said Renatus with a shrug and an easy smile, but the smile faded as he looked back into the doorway, “A two-hundred-year-old ballroom…” he said quietly. He straightened up, “It was dreadfully garish anyway. I always thought it could use a little updating. Now—I have an excuse,” he forced a laugh but that fell into a worried noise half-smothered in his throat “Anyway, at least you managed not to destroy Mother’s chan—”

There was a large sound of _krish-CHUNK_ and a beautiful, but partially blackened chandelier fell. Val grabbed Aria and yanked her away from the doorway as the radiant structure of spiraling tendrils of red and orange hand blown glass crashed and shattered on the marble floor, the force sending a few glass shards scattering onto the carpet of the hallway.

“…Mother’s chandelier…” Renatus said, turning as pale as he possibly could. Aria’s hands were clasped over her mouth, looking between Renatus and the chandelier, with her eyes wide and horrified. Renatus noted her expression and forced that same pained laugh again. “Well that’s how that goes, isn’t it?”

“Renatus—I didn’t think—I didn’t mean—I’m so sorry—” Aria was saying.

“Oh I know you didn’t mean for any of this to happen. You don’t have to keep apologizing,” Renatus said, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. He glanced back at the chandelier as one of the few not-completely-shattered tendrils of glass snapped off and broke against the marble. “It’s only a chandelier. It’s not like Mother was going to come back for it—-she didn’t even come back for _me_ so—-I—” he seemed to catch himself and then cleared his throat and pulled out his datapad and hit a few buttons on it. “I’m going to get a drink,” he said, something choked down and smothered in his voice, “Anyone else want a drink?” 

“But—your ballroom—” Aria said looking between him and the ballroom.

“Maintenance droids are on their way,” he said, holding up his datapad, “Come on, you could use a drink.” 

—

Obviously they couldn’t go straight to the bar. Val and Cyp had to spend about fifteen minutes checking all of the smuggling compartments on the Siyah for the younglings. Oda didn’t even really bother hiding—he just sat inside the same closet where Val had kept Aria, which still had the door blasted off. Tepui was found in a smuggling compartment in the wall, and they had almost given up and gone off the ship to find Galix when the Twi’lek fell through a ceiling grate.

“Is that just a Jedi thing? Crawling through vents?” Val said, sticking the grate back on.

“You _told_ us to hide,” said Galix, dusting himself off.

“Really?” Cyp said, looking at Val.

“I thought a bomb went off!” said Val, “What else could I do in that situation! It’s not like could just be like, ‘Come on kids! Let’s run toward the sound of an explosion!’”

“Hm,” Cyp frowned, “Give me a minute.”

He walked briskly out of the Siyah and out of the garage. He was gone for about five minutes before he returned with something that looked a bit like an ivory pendant shaped like a nautilus shell.

“If anything happens, we’re going to need a better contingency plan than ‘hide,’” said Cyp. He looked at the younglings, “Tepui—you’re oldest, right?”

Tepui nodded and Cyp dropped to one knee in front of her and held out the pendant to her, “I need you to wear this,” he said.

“What is it?” said Tepui, taking it and looping the chord of the pendant over her head.

“On Chandrila they’re called paguro pendants. Parents have their kids wear them in case they get lost. Its the only object I have from before I joined the Order, so it’s very important that you don’t lose it,” said Cyp. He took his comm out of his pocket and pressed a few buttons on it, “Its technology is monstrously out of date for Chandrila and Serenno, but…” he pressed a few more buttons, “Jedi tech is more…flexible.. and..I should be able to affix its homing code to my comm…there!” The pendant around Tepui’s neck made a blipping sound and glowed yellow before re-assuming its original ivory color, “Okay. I should be able to find out where you are with my comm if we ever get separated.”

“Ha ha, Tay’s getting tracked!” Galix said, elbowing Tepui.

“You’re _all_ getting tracked,” said Cyp, “Tepui tracks you, and I track Tepui.”

“What?” said Galix.

Cyp turned to Tepui, “Do you understand? You’re the oldest, so you’re responsible for these two now. I can only keep track of you, so it’s up to you to stay with Galix and Oda and keep together so that if anything happens, I can find all three of you. Can you accept that responsibility?”

Tepui looked nervous briefly, then solemnly nodded.

“And you two,” Cyp looked over at Galix and Oda, “You need to stay with her. No wandering off. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” Galix and Oda said at the same time. 

“All right then. All of you get ready for bed,” said Cyp, pointing to the exit of the garage. The three of them walked off, grumbling.

“It’s just… you that can track her, right?” said Val.

“Yeah…It’s not a strong enough signal to be picked up off-planet. It’ll only show up on my comm,” said Cyp. 

“What’ll these kids do without you?” said Val, moving to exit the garage.

“I try not to think about that,” said Cyp.

—-

They met up with Renatus and Aria down in the holo-theater, which had a corner of it equipped with a fully-stocked bar. 

“Ah! Glad you could make it!” said Renatus, sliding down two glasses to them. Cyp picked up a glass, half-filled with about a thumb’s length of something brownish-amber colored and watched as Val easily knocked back the drink.

“This isn’t filled all the way,” Cyp said, sniffing the liquid and then wincing back even more than he had the first time Renatus offered him a drink.

“It’s not supposed to be filled all the way,” said Renatus, filling another glass with something fizzing and silvery and pushing that toward Aria.

“Why wouldn’t you just use a smaller glass?”

“Well then you wouldn’t _smell_ it right,” said Renatus.

“But…I’m drinking it…” Cyp said slowly. He sniffed it again and winced once more, wondering why he would expect it to be different this time, “It just smells like burning. I don’t understand…”

“You know, it’s the little things like this that make me more okay with father never letting me join the Order,” said Renatus, “I mean I’ll never _really_ be okay with it, but I treasure moments like these.” 

“It’s not the same drink as last time either,” said Cyp.

“Well that was a late afternoon drink, this,” Renatus gestured at the glass, “Is an evening drink.”

“There are drinks for different times of day?” Cyp said. He glanced over at Aria, “Do all planets have arbitrary rules for drinking?”

“Hey, arbitrary rules to disguise the consumption of pain-dulling toxins as a decorated function of upper-class society is one of the cornerstones of Serennoan civilization, thank you very much,” said Renatus, refilling his own glass.

“Actually I was wondering something like that too,” said Val, glancing over at Aria, “That crummy strip club I found you in—”

“Strip club?!” Cyp said in shock. 

“Yeah,” said Val, looking over at Aria, “Like… was that a usual hangout for you or…just a desperate hiding spot?”

“What do you think?” Aria said, a slight laugh in her voice.

“I dunno, you’re chock-full of surprises, that’s why I’m asking,” said Val. 

Aria huffed and rolled her eyes, grinning, “It was a hiding spot, obviously.” 

“Figured…you don’t strike me as the barhopping type,” Val said.

Aria held up her own drink and said, “Not bars, no. But Jedi try and make a point of understanding the local culture. Actually the more rural locals on Lyalli had this sort of…thick…creamy…spirit…thing that dated back to the earliest days of Omwati colonization—see the tree roots on the planet would be attacked by these parasitic grubs about the size of your forearm that would emerge out of the ground when the weather got too warm—and the locals chopped off the reproductive organs of the parasites and would make the drink out of them but the only way to properly ferment them was to chew them up and then spit it out and bury the mash in the grub’s stitched-up carcass for…several…weeks..” Aria noted the increasing disgust on everyone’s face, trailed off, and then cleared her throat and awkwardly sipped her drink, “It tasted a lot better than it sounds.”

All four of them were quiet for a bit before Cyp spoke up again. _“A strip club?!”_

“Oh come on Cyp, there are dozens, maybe hundreds of places just like it on Coruscant,” said Aria. “Did—did you ever visit the city’s base levels with Master Sinube?”

Cyp shook his head, “You know I was always with Master Jocasta,” he said, taking one sip of his drink and flinching hard from the taste and then coughing and choking it down, “Who in their right mind would drink this?”

“How was she? Master Jocasta I mean…” Aria asked, “Before…” she trailed off and took a sip of her drink.

“Still kicking and kind as always,” said Cyp, taking another drink and finding it went down a lot easier the second time, “I miss her.”

There was another gap of silence before Renatus raised his glass and said, “To old friends and new surprises.”

Val, eager to move the subject away from where it was going quickly raised his glass and said, “Old friends and new surprises.”

“Old friends and new surprises,” Aria and Cyp said in unison as the four of them clinked their glasses together and took a drink. Cyp winced once more with his drink.

“Speaking of surprises,” Renatus said looking over at Val, “I’m glad you decided to stick around.”

“I didn’t—-” Val started to say and then glanced at Cyp and Aria, “Y’know they had the… crystal… thing and needed someone to watch the younglings and like I can’t—-I mean I can definitely exit the atmosphere in shit weather like this but—” he ran a hand through his blue hair, sighing, “I dunno at this point it feels like it would be kind of messed up to leave everyone when… I’m alive because I came here.”

“So you’ve considered my offer?” said Renatus.

“Offer?” Aria repeated after him.

“Just a job offer—we could use a bit of muscle that won’t draw the Empire’s eye to us. Security droids can only do so much and all that,” said Renatus, looking back at Val.

“I said I’d think about it,” said Val.

Aria seemed to note Val’s discomfort and said, “Look, what happened with Korbo and the bounty and everything—Renatus is already risking so much just letting us stay here—don’t feel like you need to do the same just because of that.”

“Absolutely, it’s all in the past,” said Cyp.

Val raised an eyebrow at Cyp, who seemed to quickly realize that he had just backtracked on what he had said to Val in the garage the previous day.

“What matters is that you got me here. That’s enough, really,” said Aria. 

“Well hey, I couldn’t have even done that without Cyp’s message—-” Val started to say and then noted the sudden abject terror in Cyp’s eyes.

“Really? What did you say?” said Aria, looking over at Cyp, who was going red faced and white-knuckled. 

“I—well—” Cyp started to say but Val interrupted.

“Oh you know, just that he was on Serenno and that the younglings needed a teacher and that you’re his best friend!” Val blurted out. Cyp was staring at him, apparently trying to process everything. “…And….that… he was worried about you,” Val said before taking another drink and wondering just how risky it would be jumping on his ship right now, flying out in almost zero visibility between darkness and rain, and immediately hitting the hyperdrive upon exiting the atmosphere.

“Yes,” Cyp’s voice was clipped, “Just that.”

Aria’s eyes flicked between Cyp and Val, and then over to Renatus who seemed to be watching the whole thing with no small amount of amusement. “Well,” she said finally, looking between Cyp and Val, “Thank you both. And thank you, Renatus, for letting us stay here…again,” she said, and her smile faded a bit, “And… sorry about the ballroom…again.”

“It’s fine. I know it was an accident,” Renatus took a sip of his drink, “If it makes you feel any better, the three of you and the younglings are the most interesting guests the villa’s had in… oh, probably my entire life.”

“I should go check on them—the younglings,” Cyp suddenly said, standing up and walking away from the bar. 

“Do you need me to—” Aria started to say after him.

“No, no I’ve got this,” said Cyp, walking away.

Val watched as Cyp slipped out the door to the holo-theater. A few seconds passed before he said, “Yeah that…uh…” he gestured vaguely at his glass, “That stuff’s going right through me. I’m gonna use the little mando’s room.” With that he walked out as well.

—

It didn’t take him long to catch up with Cyp, who was walking very fast toward the main foyer of the villa.

“Hey—” Val started but Cyp suddenly whirled on him.

“I don’t need your help!” he snapped, then seemed to realize the anger in his own voice and then huffed, running both hands through his red hair, “I don’t need your help…” he said again, more softly this time.

“It was my fault the message thing got brought up in the first place,” said Val, “I didn’t want to put you on the spot…”

“You’ve known…” Cyp said, more to himself than to Val, before looking up at Val, “You’ve known this whole time—You—You got the message and she didn’t. All this time I—-I kept hoping, ‘Maybe she ignored it like I asked her to,’” he started walking into the main foyer, going on, “And I was terrified that she had seen the whole thing and then just decided to pretend it never happened to spare me the embarrassment—but I didn’t know and it’s not like I could bloody well ask, _‘Oh did you get my pathetic love confession?’_ ’” 

“It wasn’t pathetic,” said Val.

“Don’t patronize me!” Cyp snapped again, moving up the stairs of the foyer.

“I’m not—-It wasn’t any of my business—” said Val.

“Wasn’t any of your—So you’ll throw away a ten-thousand credit bounty for Aria, fight your _boss_ to save her, blow up a freighter for her, and even _watch the bloody younglings_ but when it comes to the people in her life who’ve known her nearly as long as they can remember, when it comes to the last bloody scraps of her order, then it’s none of your business?!”

“We only blew up part of the freighter…” Val said quietly before unfolding his arms and going, “Look, what you’ve got going on with Aria—that’s between you and her.”

“These past two days have been torture for me, do you understand that?! Oh, but the exchange in the garage must have been _hilarious_ for you—-”

“Why the fuck would it be hilarious!?” Val suddenly snapped, “What, you think some armor and a jetpack automatically turn me into a damn sadist? You think I like watching you crash and burn while she just…shrinks and withers away and both of you are acting like this shit isn’t bothering you?! While both of you do this…this…Jedi banthashit where you pull away from any actual human reaction or emotion? What the hell was the Order teaching you if both of you think this is _normal_ or _healthy_ for people!?”

Cyp flushed red. “Don’t you _dare_ talk about the Order like that! You have no idea what those people meant to us!” 

“Of course I don’t! You Jedi are so deep in your heads and so far up your own asses and so wrapped up in this ‘tranquility’ banthashit that it’s a wonder you have any _concept_ of love! With all the shit you’re ignoring in your own fucking head, it’s no wonder the crystal fucking exploded when you and Aria tried to fill it with—with your magic… whatever!”

“THE FORCE. It’s called the Force! You don’t even know what you’re talking about!” Cyp said then seemed to realize he was raising his voice and then pulled back and inhaled through his nose and exhaled through his mouth and then pinched the bridge of his nose, “I’m going to check on the younglings and then I’m going to bed.”

Val’s blood boiled for a few seconds. He wanted to shout, _“Are you kidding me?! Get angry! Fight me! Get back in that holo-theater, go up to Aria and plant one! Okay maybe don’t do that last one since she’s had a long day and that’s a whole other can of exogorths to deal with—but feel SOMETHING!”_ Instead, what only came out was a hot and bitter, “Well…fine! Go be a Jedi!” 

“I’m not a Jedi!” Cyp’s call came from the top of the stairs. 

Val gritted his teeth and made a scoffing, snarling noise before turning on his heel and heading back to the holo-theater. Renatus had refilled both his and Cyp’s glasses.

“Where’s Cyp?” said Aria.

“He’s going to bed,” said Val picking up one of the glasses and downing it in two gulps.

“Ah, pity, I just poured him—” Renatus started to say but Val grabbed the second glass and downed that too, “Well I suppose that takes care of that.”


	10. That Belongs in a Museum!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cyp is stressed. Val is babysitting. Renatus is probably a bit more into Sith stuff than he should be. Secrets are revealed and a butt gets touched.

Breakfast the next morning were some hard, sweet Serennoan pastries or bread or something in between with tangerette marmalade.

“So…” Aria was turning over the hard little biscuit in her fingers, “You’re definitely leaving? Today?”

“Yeah,” Val said, looking out the window at the light drizzle, “I’ve uh… I’ve got some business to take care of back in the Western Reaches… can’t just hide out here with Korbo’s whole operation collapsing…you know.”

“I… I don’t, but I understand,” said Aria.

“I mean it’ll be a few hours for me to get everything squared away—-I’ll let you know when,” Val glanced at Renatus, “Thanks for the ammo…and the jet pack fuel…and the food.”

“It’s been a pleasure,” said Renatus, “You will come back and visit, won’t you?”

“Yeah I’ll check in,” said Val, “Smugglers can always use a warm bed on a planet. I’ll drop by whenever I’m in the D’Astan sector.”

“You’ll let me use the turret then, right?” said Galix.

“Maybe when your feet can reach the pedals,” said Val.

There was a brief pause and everyone glanced over at Cyp, who had said almost nothing for all of breakfast. Cyp seemed distracted, then suddenly sat up when he felt everyone’s eyes on him and then cleared his throat and said, “Fly safe then.”

“Thanks,” said Val. A very long pause passed across the breakfast table before Renatus forced a cough and handed his plate over to the kitchen droid.

“We’ll need to go to town today,” said Renatus, “I may not care too much about appearances, but unfortunately my cousins and the Grand Assembly do—people tend to ask questions about explosion marks.”

“Couldn’t you just say one of your droids exploded?” said Galix, glancing over at the kitchen droid.

“My droids don’t explode,” said Renatus, sipping tangerette juice, “My cousins have painted me the mechanical fanatic years enough for them to know that much—Well then again they always thought I was…” he gestured next to his head with his hand and then frowned, “It would be easier just to get the whole thing fixed as soon as possible.” 

“What town?” said Aria.

“Nereisa,” said Renatus, “We’ll need to take the skiff to get there.”

“We?” said Aria.

“I think… you could do with the fresh air,” said Renatus. He glanced over at Cyp, “You wouldn’t mind watching the younglings for the day, would you?”

“What?!” Galix piped up, “But I want to go too!”

Renatus sighed. “And I’d love for you to come with us, but a twi’lek kid without twi’lek parents in a mostly human city is going to raise a lot of ques—”

“We’ve been cooped up here this whole time! I’m sick of the villa!” said Galix.

“I understand. The Holo-theater is equipped with—-” Renatus started.

“I’m sick of the holo-theater!” Galix snapped, “So what? I can’t go just because it’ll raise some stupid questions? We can lie! I shouldn’t have to—-”

“We’re not trying to keep you cooped up here, we’re trying to keep you from getting captured and killed!” Cyp suddenly snapped, “Have you lost all concept of that!? Did you forget what happened at the Temple!? Did you forget why we’re _here!?_ ” Cyp spoke so loudly and so harshly that everyone else at the breakfast table fell silent. Galix was stunned, even more so than when Aria had told him they couldn’t fight in the Holo-theater. Aria was the Jedi—Aria could be harsh, but Cyp was another matter entirely. Cyp seemed to realize this, he suddenly realized the fear that was all over Galix’s face. He then glanced up at the rest of the table, all staring at him. He looked back at Galix. “I’m sorry—-that was…I’m sorry. I need to go,” he stood up from the table and walked out of the room. Aria immediately stood up and followed after him.

“Cyp—Cyp!” Aria caught up with him and grabbed his arm and he turned on his heel at her glaring, then seeing her face and immediately regretting the look in his own eyes, “What’s wrong? You’ve been acting weird ever since last night—”

“I’m fine,” Cyp said, pulling his arm from her grip, “I just need to…get out for a while.” 

“It’s the crystal, isn’t it?” said Aria.

“No—yes—I mean it’s a part of it—-” Cyp started to say.

“It’s not your fault the crystal…did that. It’s mine,” said Aria, “We shouldn’t have even tried to work with it in the first place—-”

“Aria—what—that crystal was our best chance for—-”

“It was a synth crystal,” said Aria, “Renatus and I didn’t find it on the Dooku estate—we made it.”

“You _what!?_ ” said Cyp.

“There was a geological compressor and—I thought—I know you rejected it when Renatus brought it up, but I thought if I could just make a functioning lightsaber crystal then it wouldn’t matter how it was made—-I didn’t want you to worry or think I didn’t care about your concerns about it so I just…” she scoffed and pressed her hand to her forehead, “I was stupid and ambitious. I thought I could circumvent the Dark Side like Master Windu always did but I just put you in danger and got everyone’s hopes up and dashed them to the ground and I’m _so sorry._ ” 

“Aria…” Cyp started to say.

“And I kept it from you even after the thing… _blew up_ because I didn’t want to upset you more about the whole issue but it’s been bothering you all this time and ugh!” she clasped her hands to the side of her head, “I’m worse than the Council!” 

“Worse than—what does the Council have anything to do with this?”

“Nothing I was just…” Aria brought her hands down and folded her arms, “We always just… accepted that they kept secrets from the whole Order, and we were okay with it and—and now _I’m_ doing it—-but it’s not okay. I keep trying not to think about ‘what could have been done? What could we have done to have stopped us being here—to have stopped us losing everything?’ But I don’t know. You don’t know. No one knows because everything we might have known about what was happening with Palpatine, what was _going_ to happen with Palpatine, died with the Council!” She pursed her lips, “As far as we know, we may be the last people in the galaxy upholding the Jedi traditions, and we can’t make their same mistakes if we’re going to keep the Order alive, if we’re going to stay alive.” She huffed and a bitter smile crossed her face, “But how can you try anything new if the smallest mistake can get you and everyone you have left killed?” The smile faded instantly and she pulled her arms tighter against herself, “I was stupid. I left you out of it until I thought I needed you and it nearly got you killed.”

“You did what you thought was best,” said Cyp, “You always do.”

“But—not like that—I used to share everything with you and now I feel like…like everything I touch in this galaxy can break at any moment so I have to keep everything _in_ and…” she trailed off, then suddenly whipped her skinny arms around him, squeezing him tightly, “I’m sorry…I’m not even making any sense any more…” she said, her voice half-muffled into his shoulder.

Cyp’s arms found their way around her and returned the hug, “You’re making a terrifying amount of sense, actually,” he said quietly.

A chuckle escaped her as they broke away from the hug, “Renatus is right… I really could use some fresh air.”

“Biggest understatement in the galaxy…” said Cyp.

“And so could you,” said Aria, taking his hands in hers, “With everything that happened yesterday, I’m sure Val won’t mind looking after the younglings for another couple hours. You should go and take some time for yourself.”

“Yeah…” Cyp rubbed the back of his neck.

—-

Cyp took off in one of Renatus’s speeders within the hour. He didn’t have an exact plan for where he was going, but Renatus said that the Anerazi region had some lovely waterfalls that always calmed him down to see. Aria asked Val to watch over the younglings for a while and he obliged, saying he always liked flying off into sunsets anyways. Renatus’s skiff was fast and very good in in-atmosphere flights, so prepping for the trip to Nereisa didn’t take long. None of the women’s clothes Renatus had on hand at the villa actually fit her, so Aria opted for a simple ensemble that Renatus had worn back when he was a teenager of fitted black trousers, boots, and a black long-sleeved tunic with flattering princess seams running down the front, and a short stand-up collar banding around the neck. A dusty old seamstress droid that hadn’t seen use in years quickly and easily darted the sides of the tunic to Aria’s measurements to make the fitting slightly more feminine, and was snipping the last loose thread when Renatus walked in with a small cylindrical container and a small brush and held it out to her.

“I thought—-I realized Umbarans are pretty rare and I know you’re only part Umbaran but around the eyes you’re…” he gestured as Aria opened the container, “I usually just use this for blemishes. My skin tone’s a bit more tan than yours, but it should work.”

“Make-up?” said Aria.

“Yes—-do you know how to use it?”

“Not really, no. Jedi aren’t exactly big on make-up.” 

“Oh—may I?” 

“I… guess…” said Aria, handing back the container.

Renatus pulled up a seat as Aria sat on the edge of her bed and closed her eyes as he dusted over her eyelids and under her eyes with the brush and blended outward to her temples and brow bones.

“Are you done yet?” said Aria after a minute of blending.

“Keep them closed, give me a few seconds,” said Renatus before finally going, “There! You make a lovely human! Wait— keep your eyes closed. Okay. Open them.”

Aria opened her eyes, “I didn’t even feel the brush what were you—-” she noticed Renatus was holding his hands out to her and glanced downwards, then she gasped and scrambled back on the bed. “What are you doing with those!?”

Renatus was holding the crystal. Well, not the crystal, but rather the crystal split into two halves. “The maintenance droids found them when they were cleaning up the ballroom—They’re the proper size for a lightsaber now—-”

“Renatus—-those aren’t _stable!_ You shouldn’t even be holding them!”

“I thought you’d be happy,” said Renatus, glancing at the crystals, “We can construct two lightsabers with these!”

“No—no absolutely not—we are not doing that. We are not using those,” said Aria.

“You’re not even giving them a chance?” Renatus said.

“I gave the crystal enough of a chance yesterday,” said Aria, “And look what happened! We try and put those in a lightsaber and someone could get their arms blown off!”

“But think about it—The Sith believe there are always two—Master and apprentice! Maybe the compressor wasn’t _meant_ to make a single crystal!”

_“We are not Sith!”_ Aria’s words came out sharp and hot, her face flushing lavender-pink even through Renatus’s make-up, “I used that awful Sith contraption once and the crystal from it nearly got me and Cyp killed! How many more rules of the Sith are we going to have to play by for those…those awful things to work!? Where are we going to draw the line?!” She paused and blinked a few times, “Where are you going to draw the line, Renatus?” she exhaled, “You said you wanted to help the Jedi.”

“I’m trying to help…” Renatus said.

“Well if we let ourselves become something else entirely, you won’t be helping the Jedi anymore, will you?” said Aria. 

Renatus opened his mouth, then closed it and sighed and lowered the crystals, “You’re right,” he said, “I’ll…I’ll take care of these.”

Aria took a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair, “Okay… I’ll just… be down in the garage. Let’s just… go to Nereisa.”

—-

Aria waved goodbye to Val through the viewport of the skiff as they took off from the Villa. Nereisa was, ironically, not too far off from the Dooku estate—-It was a bustling little city overlooking a large lake with a small spaceport. Tall spires and streets lined with trees. Aria wondered how the cradle of Separatism in the galaxy managed to come out of the Clone Wars looking so good. It was raining slightly, and the rain had sent much of the city’s inhabitants to the interiors of stores and cafes, with various people carrying around brightly decorated umbrellas, some with pressure-tech making small animations of fireworks or blooming flowers burst over their canvas with each raindrop, or having their droids hold umbrellas over them while they talked on comms and tapped away at datapads. It wasn’t like the cities Aria was used to at all. There were hardly any beggars or transients, no odd animals rooting through garbage, everything bright, perfectly tailored and clean and only getting cleaner with the rain. Aria donned a black hooded capelet to keep the rain from melting away her makeup, and Renatus pulled on a hooded jacket that reached down to the back of his knees.

“No one makes glass anymore,” muttered Renatus, thumbing through his datapad as the ship’s entry ramp lowered and they passed through the tarmac’s terminal to the main streets of the city, “Which do you think would look better—-transparisteel or clari-crystalline?”

“Transparisteel would be more durable, I imagine,” said Aria.

“Clari-Crystalline then. If I suddenly start acting practical then all the Assembly will know something’s afoot.” 

They paused in front of a small shop and Renatus opened the door for her. The interior was warm, if not a little musty, like some areas of Renatus’s villa but mustier, more softened with age. Various antiques from all around the galaxy rested on shelves and in cubbies all around the shop, some hanging from the ceiling. 

“Lord Renatus!” an ancient artiodac stood up from behind a counter, “It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen your face!”

“Hello Chevinh,” said Renatus, “We were in town and just thought we should drop by.” 

“How’s your father?” Chevinh said, easing out from behind a counter.

“He passed on,” said Renatus.

“Ah—-my condolences,” said Chevinh, “How did your mother take it?”

“Mother?” Aria saw something tighten in Renatus’s face then seem to fall away, “Oh it’s been quite a while. She’s thriving, honestly.”

“Ah—-give her my regards. That woman deserves the world and all the stars,” said Chevinh.

“Will do,” said Renatus.

Chevinh’s eyes turned to Aria, “And who’s your little friend here?”

“Oh this is Ari—” Renatus caught himself and coughed and glanced around the room until his eyes fell on an antique music projector from Alderaan with a musicylinder next to it featuring the picture of a passionately singing Askajian woman and the words ‘THAA—GREATEST HITS,’ “Aree…Thaa. Aree Thaa. She’s a good friend.” 

“Beautiful name,” said Chevinh, “But by the looks of your nerves, she’s not just a good friend eh?” He elbowed Aria playfully, “All this sneaking around must have you two exhausted!”

“What?” Aria and Renatus said at the same time. Aria felt blood rush to her face with nervousness and worried that her blushing would show up through Renatus’s makeup. 

“Oh please, I’ve been around for 500 years—-you think you’re the first highborn Serennoan who thinks they can sneak a commoner lover past me?” 

“Oh— _Oh,_ ” Renatus forced a laugh and wagged a finger at Chevinh, “Yes—Alright, you caught me. Aree here’s my wife.” He then gave a demonstrative swat to Aria’s rear, which caught her completely off-guard and took her a panicked half-second to try and act like what had just happened was normal and force a smile.

“I can tell, I can tell,” said Chevinh turning around, “Oh—give me a second the shop’s a terrible mess—” he said, hustling off and straightening up the shop.

“What was _that?!”_ Aria hissed between gritted teeth.

“It’s a Serennoan thing—” Renatus started to say before Chevinh came back and both of them straightened up and forced smiles and leaned against each other. 

“You don’t need to worry about a thing, Renatus. My lips are sealed. She was never here,” said Chevinh, “You two want anything? Water? Tea?”

“Actually I need to get going,” said Renatus, “Need to commission some Clari-crystalline for the villa. Boring stuff. I thought Aree might like to check out your special collection while I get this silly errand done.”

“Ahhh a commoner with fancy tastes!” said Chevinh slapping Renatus’s back and laughing heartily, “I’ll see what I can do,” he said, heading off again.

Aria glanced at Renatus as Chevinh walked off, “I don’t mind coming along for the crystalline,” she said.

“Yes well… I thought you’d rather look at—-well last time we were sneaking around and you didn’t get a chance to—You know what? I’ll let him surprise you,” Renatus smiled.

“You coming?” Chevinh called from the back of the shop.

“In a moment!” Aria called after him before turning to Renatus, “Don’t be too long.”

“You can call me on my comm at any time,” said Renatus, clapping her on the shoulder and heading out the front door of the shop. Aria smiled and followed after Chevinh.

“You’d be surprised how many people request the special collection,” said Chevinh, unlocking a door, “Some fancy people claim datapads and holo-screens give them headaches. Headaches! From screens! Can you imagine!” He opened the door and aria took in a smell that she could recognize instantly. 

“Books!” she said, delighted.

“I know! Look at these old things! Can you imagine how many trees must have been cut down for these things? Terribly wasteful…ah but who can judge,” said Chevinh as Aria walked past him and grabbed a book, opened it, and smelled it, “They’re meant to be read, you know.”

—-

Somehow the kitchen droid had thought it a fine and dandy idea to whip up another batch of bofa fruit candies and the younglings were running wild over the gardens. Well, Oda contented himself to meditation next to one of the fountains, but Tepui and Galix were another story.

“Don’t think you can hide from me,” said Val, walking along a hedge, “I can track a narglatch in a snowstorm,” He heard giggling from behind one of the hedges and dodged around it, “Gotch—shit…” he looked around, “Okay, very funny. Unfortunately my job is to watch you so—”

“RAAAH!” Galix dropped down from a tree branch and attempted to get Val in a headlock. Val easily pried him off his shoulders and held him at arm’s length, his legs flailing.

“Yeah, gonna have to try harder than tha—” Tepui suddenly barreled into him from the side, knocking the wind out of him, forcing him to drop Galix and sending him flat on his back. “Ah—ow…shit. Good one,” he said, sitting up and wincing, “Nnh—-Remember the part where Val said he was shot a couple of days ago?” 

“Val should have protected his flank better!” Tepui said dramatically before seeing him grunt in pain as he got to his feet before adding, “And…um…sorry.” 

“Yeah it’s fine,” said Val, rubbing the back of his head. It was the first day in a while where he could wear his armor, and he only regretted it a little. It wasn’t the full set, no helmet and no jetpack, for obvious reasons. “Okay, there’s only so many tacklings I can take. Anyone up for a holo?”

“Ugh, Holos are boring,” said Galix, getting to his own feet and dusting himself off.

“Well, they are if it’s Cyp picking all of them,” said Val, “Come on. Let’s see what else is in the theater.” He glanced over his shoulder at Oda. “Hey Oda, come on!”

—

Val was used to watching holos on the shitty projector on his own ship, watching something other than depressing news in the holo-theater almost made him regret the fact that he was leaving soon.

“I don’t get it—-wasn’t he a teacher in that other scene?” said Tepui, watching as a hologram of a scrappy-looking Kiffar ran across the projector, pursued by a giant rolling boulder.

“He’s an archeologist, you know, like Aria,” said Val, “I mean—apart from the ‘Jedi consular’ bit. But like…she’s going to be teaching you guys too, right?” They watched as the kiffar in the projection skidded on his heels and dodged incoming blaster fire. 

“If he’s a teacher and an archeologist…why is he fighting Zygerrians?” said Tepui, squinting.

“He didn’t set out to fight Zygerrians they’re just after the same treasure—I mean Aria fights too, so it’s not that big of a stretch for—-look just watch the holo,” said Val.

“Why is his name ‘Concordia Janz’ if he’s from Kiffex?” Galix piped up.

_“We named the strill ‘Concordia,’”_ Val said in an affected voice, which only prompted even more confused looks from the younglings, “They explain it in the sequel. You meet his dad.” Val glanced over at the creak of one of the chairs, seeing Oda stand up and get out of it, “Hey you know, if you don’t like it, we can watch something different.”

“No, I want to see him punch more people!” said Galix.

“Oda?” Val glanced over at the Rodian, walking to the door of the holo-theater.

“I’m just going to use the bathroom,” said Oda, not even looking at Val.

“Okay—we can replay the parts you missed when you get back, yeah?” said Val.

Oda didn’t say anything but slipped out the door. 

The holo went on. Ten minutes, then twenty, then thirty minutes passed and Oda still hadn’t come back. 

“Hey, uh…do either of you know how long it takes Rodians to uh…do their business? Like…is there like…a biological thing or…?” said Val. 

Galix and Tepui shrugged. Val sighed and stood up. “I’m gonna go check on him.” 

Val headed out of the holo-theater and walked down the hall to the closest bathroom and knocked on the door, “Hey, everything all right in there?” He paused and waited. Nothing. He knocked on the door, “Hey Oda, you need anything? How are you doing in there?” Again, nothing. “Oda?” he tried the door and found it wasn’t locked, he opened the door into the bathroom and saw it was empty. “…shit.” he said and rushed back out. He checked the bathroom in the main foyer, the bathrooms near the guest rooms, the kitchen, the gardens, sprinting around from one corner of the villa to the next. “Oda?! Hey, Oda, now’s not the time for hide and seek, buddy—Oda?” He realized he still left Tepui and Galix alone and rushed back to the holo-theater, “Okay, no one panic, but I can’t find Oda.”

“Okay,” said Tepui and Galix, still watching the holo.

“Guys,” Val repeated, “I can’t find Oda.”

“He wanders off all the time,” said Galix.

“Either of you know where he likes to wander _to?_ ” said Val.

Both of them shrugged and Val put his forehead in his hand, “Okay, I’m sure he’s fine, but like… it’s my last day here. So I’d really rather not have Cyp and Aria come back to ‘Oh the younglings are fine, Val just lost one of them.’ So if I could get your help on this, that would be great.”

“Ugh, fine,” Galix said, standing up. Tepui got up after him.

“Okay,” said Val as they walked up and out to the main foyer, “We’ll meet back here in….” he set a timer on his gauntlets, “Thirty minutes. Galix, you take the west wing of the villa, and Tepui and I will take the east wing. Good?” 

Tepui and Galix nodded.

“Okay come on,” said Val, heading up the foyer stairs.

The first several rooms they looked through Tepui was calm, around the time they got to the top floor of the villa Tepui was anxiously pulling at her head tendrils and getting more and more distressed.

“Cyp put me in charge!” she said as Val looked through one room. 

“Look, it’s my fault too,” said Val, shutting the door and walking down the hall.

“Well yeah but you’re…” Tepui trailed off.

“Do you not want to finish that sentence or do you not know how?” said Val, smiling slightly as they both looked through another room.

“I don’t know,” said Tepui, “I know the clones were…cloned off a Mandalorian… but everyone always said all these other Mandalorians were…”

“Bullies, pirates, terrorists, and worse, yeah. I’ve heard it all,” said Val. 

“But Aria trusts you,” said Tepui.

“Yeah well…we’d better find Oda if we’re going to keep it that way, huh?” Val put his hands on his hips then ran one hand through his hair and sighed, “Okay, we’ll check around the Holo-theater one more time, and then we call Cyp, yeah?”

Tepui fiddled with her head tendrils nervously and nodded. They headed back down several flights of stairs to the hallway that lead into the Holo-theater, and Val walked down the hallway to one lonely door at the end. He tried it only to find it locked. “Ugh…” he sighed and put his forehead against the door, “The one damn door we haven't checked and it’s locked.”

“Uh…Val?” Tepui pointed to a small vent next to the door. 

“What? What about the vent?” said Val.

Tepui pounded a fist against the wall and the grate of the vent fell off.

“Oh hell…” said Val, putting his forehead in his hand, “Why is it always vents with you Jedi!? Why are you always crawling through vents!?” Tepui shrugged and Val scoffed, “Okay then. Sorry about your closet, Renatus.” He took a step back. 

“The vent just goes straight—-” Tepui said as Val kicked the door, “…down.” The door fell down and Val stepped over it. 

“And…that’s not a closet,” said Val. Beyond the door the space was empty, roughly closet sized, but with two paneled doors on the opposite end of it. 

“We’re nowhere near the garage—what would he need an elevator for?” said Val, stepping forward. 

“I’ve got a bad feeling,” said Tepui.

“About what?” said Val, hitting the panel next to the doors.

“This,” said Tepui.

“Look, we’re just looking for Oda, right?” said Val as the lift doors opened, “Oda goes where he doesn’t belong—we’re just getting him out. That’s all.” He stepped into the lift, “You can stay behind or go meet with Galix in the foyer if you’re scared,” he said. 

Tepui’s mouth tightened, but then her brow furrowed and she nodded and walked in after him.

Only the ‘down’ button on the lift was lit and Val pressed it. The doors closed and the lift descended. It was a short ride down and then the doors opened to a dark corridor and Val stepped out. Small lights lit up along a short walkway to another doorway, one light automatically turned on to reveal the shadow of a headless bipedal shape and Tepui gasped and jumped behind Val, another light flicked on to reveal more skeleton-like silhouettes and Tepui flinched and shrank but Val squinted and then hit a panel on one of his gauntlets, activating a flashlight and shined it on the headless shape, revealing a half-deconstructed B2 battle droid, supported by wires, then shined it around on the other shapes, revealing other battle droids, mostly B1s.

“Huh… I guess this is where he fiddles around with his droids and stuff?” said Val, continuing to walk down the walkway, shining his flashlight around. 

“Okay, but why are they all battle droids?” said Tepui.

Val shrugged, “I mean, it’s Serenno. Planet probably has dumpsters full of them,” he said reaching the door at the end of the hallway. He heard a chirrup and turned on his heel to see a small seeker droid hovering shortly behind them.

“Huh…that’s interesting,” he said, shining a light on the droid. It chirruped and its photoreceptor turned orange, then turned red again. “Okay…” said Val, hitting the panel next to the door and opening it. the next room featured a large dark silhouette that looked like some enormous mantis-spider-like shape. Val’s breath caught in his throat and he shined his light on it to reveal some patchwork mess of droid parts suspended by wires and cables. Val shined his light upward into the mess of cables. “Woah…” he said quietly.

“What?” said Tepui, “What is it?” Val reached up into the mess of wires and pulled down some mass of motherboard and chords.

“Droid brains,” said Val, shining a light on it then shining it back up into the wires, “Must be at least a dozen up there. Why would you need all that processing power though?”

The spidery shape in front of them suddenly jolted and jerked to life and lifted an arm which appeared to be affixed with a plasma cutter at the hand joint and a welder at the elbow joint.

“Commission,” its jaw didn’t even move but its head jerked around and sparks flew from the plasma cutter.

“Commission?” Val repeated.

“C-Commission. Continue commission 8642852?”

“What?” said Val, “What do you mean ‘continue commission?’”

“Verbal ack-acknowledgement heeded. C-continuing. Commission 8642852—Beta,” sparks flew out of the plasma cutter and Val glanced down at the shape the spider-like droid was bent over, which looked like mostly bits of scrap metal. Several of the spidery limbs of the droid suddenly lunged forward and began picking and stabbing at the pile of scrap and Val put a hand on Tepui’s shoulder and they backed away slightly as sparks flew out from the droid as it worked. Several tense minutes filled with the whirr of gears and the clinks and screeches of metal-on-metal.

“What is it!? What’s it doing!?” Tepui said.

“Well…it’s a droid…” said Val as the droid continued working and whirring, suddenly it stopped and jerked back and something vaguely in the shape of B1 droid sat up where previously there had been only scrap metal. The numerous spidery limbs suddenly seized it and then pried off the back panel and shoved it aside, several cables plugging into its back and forcing it to spasm before going limp again. “It’s…a droid…that…makes other droids…?” Val said, backing away slowly. Tepui’s hand clasped around his own. Val glanced down at her, and then at the next door. “Okay. One more door and if Oda’s not there we turn around, okay?”

“Okay,” said Tepui.

Val backed away from the feverishly working mass of robotic limbs and hit the panel to the door into the next room. Oda was in the next room. It looked less like a workshop and more like a study. The walls were lined with shelves featuring books and databanks jammed in among each other and Oda sat at a desk holding a small red shape. He looked up at them and said nothing, the small pyramid in his hand reflecting red light in his big, black, starry Rodian eyes.

“Oda what do you have?” said Tepui.

“You’re not supposed to be down here,” said Oda, not looking up from the small red pyramid.

“Yeah, Oda,” said Val, “How about you put that…thingie down and we’ll go upstairs. It’s creepy down here.”

“Oda put that thing down,” Tepui spoke more harshly this time.

“Why, what’s he holding?” said Val.

“You need to leave,” said Oda, still not looking at them. The timer on Val’s gauntlet suddenly started beeping. 

“Oh, look at that!” said Val, “Thirty minutes! We found Oda! Galix is going to be waiting for us so how about we all go upstairs and—-”

“I don’t have to go anywhere with you,” said Oda. 

“Put it down!” Tepui said.

“Okay someone is going to need to tell me what he’s holding because I’m not a freakin’ Jedi,” said Val but Tepui squeezed his hand and suddenly turned to him.

“Val, we need to tell Aria. We need to tell Aria and we need to leave this place,” said Tepui.

“Tell Aria what!?” said Val. He heard a chirrup behind him and turned around to see the small seeker droid. Its photoreceptor turned orange. Then there was a blue flash and everything went black.


	11. Sith and Anagnorisis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Me: Is it weird to introduce new characters this late? Naaaaahhhh.
> 
> Special guest appearance by The Box from the Clone Wars Episode, "The Box!" Give it up for the Box!

The CommSatt. Prae Toriss hated the CommSatt with a passion. There was no day or night on the CommSatt. There were work shifts and sleep and rec breaks filled with mindless conversation with fingers tapping nervously on cups of caf, and watching Serenno below spin all lovely and lonely. Prae Toriss had been on CommSatt duty ever since the Empire started moving their goons into the Grand Assembly and he had been transferred there for ‘streamlining.’ They needed someone who worked planetside to clean up functions from a higher level. It was a promotion, they insisted, a promotion to a cold, clean, living hell of the constant whir of life-support C02 scrubbers. He kept telling himself he had five days until his next trip down to the planet, but really how could you keep track of days and nights from orbit? He hated the new uniforms too. Gray and black and smelling a bit too much like disinfectant and the inside of a new speeder. His finger tapped on his cup of caf as he stepped into the lift, only to see a young woman hustle into the lift alongside him, furiously working away at a datapad and muttering to herself. Couldn’t be older than 23.

“Rough day?” he said, sipping his caf.

“There’s been a severe security breach planetside and all my department is freaking out,” she said, not looking up from her datapad, “You know how I can get in contact with Foreman Toriss? I’m just running into red tape left and right and the Imperials will _lose it_ if they find out where the breach is before we can shut it down. I’d rather someone from the Assembly handle this since the Imperials seem to have a proclivity for…” she made a blaster shape with her fingers, pointed it at the side of her head, and made a ‘ptchoo’ sound. 

“You’re in luck,” said Prae, “I happen to know Foreman Toriss personally.”

“You do?” she said, still not looking up, Prae glanced down at her datapad to see countless blinking red letters and buttons. That didn’t look good.

“Yeah. Crusty old man, ugly as sin, has a face that looks like he ran into a Nexu on a bad day?”

“You’d better hope he never hears you saying that,” she said with a slight laugh in her voice.

“Oh he hears me all right,” said Prae, sipping his caf again.

“Wha—” she glanced up and looked at him and paled, “You—you’re Foreman Toriss.”

“‘Prae’ is fine,” said Prae.

She gave a stiff half-bow. She was pretty. Freckles, olive skin, green eyes, sleek black hair tied back in a tight, Imperial regulation bun. “Ensign Clariz Kora,” she said, “Sorry about—-”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” said Prae, “What’s this about a breach?”

“The Dooku Estate—-the other night—-Well central records chalked it up to communications errors and dangerous power fluxes but I listened to the the comm records—-I know there were already rumors circulating about the whole place being haunted or booby-trapped or some nonsense and it could easily be chalked up to some rookie guards running around and scaring each other but—-something didn’t sit right.”

“Okay…” said Prae, “What didn’t sit right?”

“It’s the eleventh disturbance of that kind in the weeks since Dooku died. And I know this sounds super-paranoid but I think someone hacked into our records back when the guard schedules were still getting set up—spacing them out so that no disturbance occurs when the same guards are present. And each time the guards report seeing a mysterious figure on the premises, the Assembly doesn’t think it’s anything because nothing is actually getting stolen. I mean… stars know what Dooku was working on in the bowels of that creepy place when he was alive so irregular power fluxes were normal—but they’re _not_ normal,” she brought up an info-graphic on her datapad and showed him, demonstrating fluctuations in power usage not at consistent times, but at consistent levels, with one fluctuation creating a higher curve in the line than all the others combined, and then another fluctuation twice that size.

“The weird thing is they were all consistent sizes before but the other night and…well…right now—-there’s a fluctuation unlike anything we’ve seen before—-and the guard reports—-they’re a mess and they’re getting harder and harder to receive. Something’s blocking their signal and getting stronger.” 

“Were you able to get any of the security feeds?”

“Reports say attempting to tap into the Dooku estate’s power grid has proven…hazardous. I was able to get one holo-feed from the guard’s comms before it uh…cut out.” She hit a button on her datapad and it started projecting some regrettably familiar shapes. Prae frowned.

“Are those…?” Prae glanced over at Clariz.

“Battle droids,” said Clariz, “Yeah.”

—-

The rain pattered down on the transparisteel of the speeder’s retractable roof. Cyp had the driver’s seat leaned back to the furthest possible angle, watching the rain drops slide into each other and then slide down the roof. The falls were roaring distantly, but he wasn’t really in the mood to be caught out in the rain. He wasn’t sure why he thought coming out here would change anything. It felt like he was pulling away so that he could figure out how to stuff everything down and keep everything in more easily. He shut his eyes. He could stop fighting it out here. He expected himself to scream, to bang against the transparisteel of the speeder, maybe even run out of the speeder and…he didn’t know, kick a tree or something. All those feelings he had been shoving down had felt so burning and cruel and coiled inside him but instead they seemed to swallow him up like dark water. He sat up and opened the door to the speeder and stepped out into the rain.

“This is stupid,” he muttered to himself, pulling his hood up as he walked between the pale betulla trees. The roar of the falls nearby seemed calming though, and the sound of rain falling against wood and wind in the trees brought him more peace than he had felt in days. He looked around and then bit the inside of his lip. “I’m not a Jedi,” he said to himself, walking around the trees and picking up several smooth round stones, “I’m not a Jedi,” he said again, stacking the stones in twos and threes around a small grove. “Not a Jedi,” he mumbled, sitting between his arrangement of stones and closing his eyes. He sat there for several minutes before opening one eye and glancing over at one stack of rocks, which was doing nothing. He frowned and extended a hand toward it. The top rock shook slightly and then was still again and Cyp half-snarled and half-sighed and flopped back on his back. “The Force is still with you,” he imitated Aria’s birdlike strain of Umbaran and Eriaduan sarcastically, “Regardless of whether or not you took the trials.” He then felt immediately guilty for mocking her for that and sat up again, “I’m a mess…” he muttered, running a hand through his hair, “And the one person I could talk to about it is the last person I can talk to about—” He blinked several times and then assumed a cross-legged meditative position and closed his eyes. He imagined her sitting in front of him, clothed in light, braids floating as if under water—no, no braids, she didn’t have the braids any more—pixie-cropped hair floating as if under water. She opened her eyes at him and smiled.

“I love you,” he said, hoping that might suffice. It didn’t. 

“I know,” she said.

“Well of course you know—You’re just a projection—I mean—you’re _you_ but you’re not…Ugh…”

“You always manage to overthink things even when you’re connecting to the Force,” she said, smiling.   
“Archivists—-our heads are too full,” Cyp said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, “Okay…simplest terms: Best friend. Love her—you. Love you—well, her, romantically. Driving myself crazy over the whole thing and managing to make an arse of myself when everyone needs me the most.”

“Nearly died, lost nearly everyone you know, threat of death still looming over your head, no idea what path to take next…” she said, folding her arms.

“All that too…” said Cyp, “I want to tell her. It’s…it’s just this…this thing sitting inside me getting bigger and more unbalanced the longer I try and let it sit. I know we always say ‘There is no emotion, there is only peace’ but—-”

“Emotion yet peace,” she said, leaning forward slightly, “We always liked Master Billaba’s version better.”

“We did, didn’t we…” he said, rubbing the back of his head, “But…it’s terrifying. Most of what they taught us was just… meditating it all away, but I could never do that. Between…” he gestured at his chest, “Between _this_ and the fact that everyone who went through the trials was being given ranks of ‘commander’ and training with ‘generals’ I knew I couldn’t be a Jedi. But you’re a Jedi—so what I feel means nothing to you.”

“Since when has what you felt ever meant nothing to me?” she seemed insulted, “You’re my friend. My _best_ friend. I want you to be happy—-well, happy is hard with the way things are going right now. I want you to be okay. I want to be there for you—-the way we’ve always been there for each other.”

“How do I know that’s how you feel and that I’m not just projecting what I want?” said Cyp.

“What you want—-you don’t even know how I feel about you!” she shot back.

“How do you feel about me?” said Cyp.

She threw her hands up, “Only as much as _you know_ she feels about you! I’m a bloody projection, Cyp! Give yourself some credit. You’ve been talking yourself down from these feelings for years, terrified that you’re falling for the idea of a person. But she’s not an idea—you’ve just been convincing yourself that she was even though you spent your childhoods together. Even though you’ve been there for her when she was losing faith in the council. Even though you’ve supported her becoming a Jedi even if you didn’t want to be one yourself. You keep trying to convince yourself that your feelings for her are an illusion when they’re actively impacting you. When again and again, you’ve always cared about her wellbeing—about her dreams. If these feelings were an illusion, Cyp, we both know you would have been able to get past them by now. You’re not some…woebegone romantic. You’re real. Your feelings are real.”

“And my idea of her is telling me this…” Cyp muttered to himself.

She slapped her forehead. “Cyp Vespa, what are we going to do with you?”

Cyp chucked painfully, “I don’t know.”

“I think you do,” she said, “You’ve put so much focus in tamping these feelings down, have you asked yourself why?”

“Because we don’t have time for this kind of thing!” said Cyp, “The Empire could—-”

“The Empire is the reason that now may be the only time,” she said, “Search your feelings and look for the real reason. You’re taking the time to work through this. Now work through it.”

Cyp breathed in and closed his eyes. Several minutes passed before he spoke again. “I’m terrified of ruining the only friendship I have left,” he rubbed his forehead, “But trying to keep everything down—-I’m not being the friend I want to be. I hate feeling like this.”

“Do you hate loving her?” she said.

“Yes—No—I don’t hate loving her—but am I not allowed to value my friendship with her just as much if not more than those feelings?”

“She values that friendship just as much,” she replied, “If she doesn’t return your feelings, that friendship will still be there.”

“And if she does—what then? She’s still a Jedi—it’s not like she’s going to suddenly drop all that just for me…”

“No, certainly not,” she smirked, “But…you are forgetting that she was willing to use a synth crystal where you weren’t. Jedi are doing what they must to survive. The Jedi Order is shattered…maybe the new one that rises in its place can be one where its members aren’t lonely and emotionally repressed messes.”

“We’re not emotionally repres—” Cyp started to say and then stopped himself, remembering the reason he was here to begin with was because he was an emotionally repressed mess. He sighed, “Maybe…” he said.

“You’ll figure it out,” she said, “I have faith in you. She has faith in you.” She smiled but suddenly her smile shrank. The light faded and she started looking around, scared.

“What’s—” Cyp started to say.

“Trouble,” she said.

“What?”

“You need to go. They’re in trouble.”

Cyp pressed his hands to the side of his face, “This is anxiety—I just need to—-” he started to say but she took his face in her hands.

“Cyp, you need to go _now!_ Everyone’s in danger!” The light she was bathed in suddenly turned to fires all around her. The temple. Blood staining the walls in the archives. Smoke in the passage. No, he wasn’t at the temple. “Cyp! They need your help!” she said before she suddenly split up into thousands of fluttering lights. Cyp’s eyes snapped open and he felt a buzzing in his pocket. He sprung to his feet and answered it as he ran over to the speeder.

“Hello?” a hologram of Galix appeared. 

“Cyp, there’s—-“ Galix’s voice suddenly dropped to a whisper, “They’re here…”

“Galix, who’s there—-?”

“Shh!” There were a few seconds of staticky silence as the hologram of Galix fearfully peeked out of a closet door, “There’s battle droids everywhere and I can’t find Val and Tepui!” he finally whispered, “I checked the garage, but Val’s ship is gone!”

“That Mandalorian piece of—-” Cyp started to say and then said, “Stay where you are. I’ll come get you.” 

He turned the speeder on and began flying back to the villa, as he did so, he took a moment to activate the paguro homing code on his comm. It blipped up and Cyp breathed a sigh of relief. Tepui was still on the planet, though stars knew where the Mandalorian had taken her.

——

Val had been stunned only twice before. He was big, and he knew it took a lot to knock him down. His wrists ached, and that was the part that scared him—stuncuffs, it had to be, and with the stuncuffs off he had no way of actually knowing how much time had passed since they had run into Oda in that creepy…study? Workshop? What had it been? He remembered a red pyramid and Tepui freaking out. _Tepui—Is she all right? Wake up, Val. Wake up you big stupid useless——_ Val’s eyes flicked open and he found himself on cold metallic…tiles wasn’t the right word. The spaces between them were too deep and they felt almost hollow when he put his hand against them and rose, shaking slightly to his knees and rubbed his forehead and looked around. They seemed to be in a large room filled with similar panels, wall to wall to ceiling, each panel featuring a large, identical blossom-like glyph. He heard a soft groan behind him and turned around to find Tepui curled up in a fetal position.

“Hey—” he scrambled over to her and shook her awake, “Hey kiddo, come on, get up.”

“Nnh…” she moaned and opened her eyes, her nictitating membranes opening slower and more blearily and one at a time. She rubbed her eyes, lifted her head and looked around. “Where are we?”

“Was that the first time you were stunned?” asked Val as she tried pushing herself to her feet.

“Yeah. Where are we?” she said again.

“Look take it easy,” said Val as she shoved herself up to her knees, “A lot of first-time stunned folks get—”

Tepui rose to her feet, wobbled, then immediately doubled over and puked.

“…nausea,” said Val.

“Oh for the love of—-Don’t _throw up_ in here, I can barely keep the damn thing working as is,” a voice Val really wished wasn’t familiar came over unseen speakers and all of a sudden one entire wall lit up to reveal a massive projection of Renatus’s face.

“Where are we?” said Val, looking around.

“Oh come on, you’re the bounty hunter,” said Renatus, “Surely you’ve heard the stories…”  
“Smuggler,” said Val, testing one of the wall panels and kicking at it.

“Really? Still going with that? Okay I’ll give you a guess. What does it _look_ like you’re in?”

Val looked around, “A…cube?”

Renatus rested his chin in his hand, “Try again.”

Val shrugged, “I dunno, a box?” his face suddenly dropped, “A Box…” he put his hand to his forehead, “A Box… Serenno… shit.”

Renatus clapped, grinning. “Look at you! Figuring stuff out! I guess you’re not just a pretty pair of pecs after all!”

“This isn’t funny. I don’t know how you managed to get us in here, you have to let us out,” Val straightened his shoulders, “People _died_ in here.”

“Yes, I’m very aware people died in here,” said Renatus.

Val glanced over at Tepui, “Renatus—-she’s a kid. Let her out. If you’re suddenly going to go…creepy game-master on us, leave her out of it.”

“Look, I wish that were an option, but unfortunately you both brought this on yourselves,” said Renatus.

“Brought this on our—Look I don’t even know what I saw down there in your creepy little droid dungeon or whatever the fuck that was!”

“Oh you don’t,” said Renatus, his eyes flicked over to Tepui, “But she does, don’t you?”

“You’re a Sith,” Tepui said, her hand balling in a fist at her side. Val’s stomach dropped. The most he knew about the Sith were little snippets from Aria’s stories on the ride to Serenno. He had been too close to unconsciousness to remember most of the specifics of what she said, but he remembered how afraid she seemed when talking about them, which was terrifying considering she was supposedly the super-powerful magical space wizard monk. 

Renatus scoffed and chuckled. “Me? A Sith!? I’m insulted. No, I just take what I need from the Sith. Including that Holocron that you found oh so terrible. Oda seems to get it, but you don’t. A shame. Aria thought you had so much potential.” 

“Renatus—-you seriously don’t have to do this,” said Val, “Aria and Cyp—-Hell, _I_ thought you were our friend—I thought you liked us! Was that all a lie? Was this all some sick… some sick game? Why would you go through all the trouble of helping Cyp and the younglings out of the burning temple if you’re just going to kill them?”

“Who said I was going to kill Cyp or the others?” said Renatus, “Look, when I say ‘You brought this on yourselves’ I don’t mean that in some ‘Oh you have slighted me and I will have my vengeance’ way, I mean you _literally_ activated the beta stage of Commission 8642852, and then S4ZA responded accordingly when you entered my study.” 

“What the hell is Commission eight six forty—whatever?”

“A list of directives I had programmed into my droid host in the event of a full-on Imperial raid on Serenno. In such an event, my first priority would be securing the Dooku estate for myself,” he sighed, “I wanted to wait—-Get Aria to warm up to my ideas, my plans—-she’s a smart girl, she’d understand… eventually. And Cyp would follow suit because let’s face it, the boy would swim through Mustafar’s lava fields for her if she asked. You, well… You were always the variable but that’s just Mandalorians for you.”

Val’s brow furrowed.

Renatus ran a hand through his hair and continued, “I assumed you’d be gone long enough to be able to roll with whatever you came back to…if you ever came back. Unfortunately I made the mistake of assuming you would follow _basic guest etiquette_ and leave a locked door alone. But you didn’t. And then you activated the commission. And you know what, maybe if you had turned back then, maybe you wouldn’t be here, but no, you just _had_ to keep looking for Oda and then you went into my study and little Tepui here starts going off about telling Aria about my holocron and we can’t have that. So I had my droids bring you here—I mean they were taking over the estate anyway—thanks to you acting like an idiot. To be frank: She’s not leaving the Box. You, however, have a chance to,” A panel suddenly opened in the ceiling of the Box and Val’s helmet fell down and landed with a bounce and clank in front of them. Val instinctively bent forward and picked it up.

“We’re going to be building something great, Aria and I,” Renatus went on, “You can be a part of that. There’s no room for sentiment with greatness. No room for weakness. The Jedi and Sith have that much in common, and I’m sure that great warrior culture you come from acknowledges the same,” A door suddenly opened on the opposite end of the room, “I’m giving you the chance to walk out of here. To join us. To use your talents for something that will eventually bring even the Empire to its knees. I assure you that she won’t suffer.”

Val glanced down at Tepui and felt her hands clasp around his free hand. “Yeah… that’s not gonna happen,” he said.

“What?” Renatus blanched.

“Okay you _seriously_ think the whole ‘warrior culture’ thing is going to make me okay with leaving a kid to die? Really? And you think _Aria_ is going to be okay with you murdering one of the last members of her Order? With murdering a _kid?_ Or let me guess—-that was going to be a situation like the holo-whatever-the-hell-that-thing-was was going to be, right? You and me keeping a secret until you think you can condition someone to be okay with it? Yeah, no, I’ll take my chances with the Box.” 

“You’re going to die in here!” There was something almost feral in his voice, “Do you understand that?! You’re going to die for her for _no reason_ and you won’t even be able to save her! And for what?!”

For what? He glanced down at Tepui and heard Aria’s voice in his head. _“I have this wild theory that despite what you apparently, desperately need everyone to assume, you’re a good person.”_

No, he still didn’t believe that. He still had a lot to figure out when it came to that. Something almost like a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Dunno,” he said, putting his helmet on, “I guess that’s just Mandalorians for you.” 

“You’re going to wish you died on that freighter,” said Renatus, before his face disappeared from the panels in the wall. Val scooped up Tepui and rushed to the door on the opposite end of the room only for it to close.

“Worth a shot,” he said as a hissing noise started and a green gas started flooding in around his ankles, “Ah…that’s not good,” he said, letting Tepui clamber up to a piggy-back position on his back. Several squares started lifting up from the floor and he clambered on top of one as it rose to the ceiling.

“Do you have a plan?” said Tepui as the gas and the platform continued rising.

“I guess… try not to die?” said Val, “I know. Shit plan.”

“It’s okay,” said Tepui, adjusting herself to a more secure position on his back, “Cyp had the same plan for getting out of the temple.” 

—-

“Looking for anything in particular?” said Chevinh as Aria scanned the shelves. Aria chewed on the inside of her lip and thought of her exchange with Renatus earlier. Maybe she had been too harsh—maybe he had been onto something with saying the compressor wasn’t meant to make a single crystal.

“This may seem silly, but do you have anything on the Sith? LIke…the process of forming synth crystals for Sith lightsabers in general.”

“Why would a pretty young thing like you want to know about the Sith?” said Chevinh.

“I’m um…an archeologist. I was told Serenno had more of an… appreciation for them,” said Aria.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing I can provide that your husband wouldn’t already know,” said Chevinh, shrugging, he looked alarmed and then caught himself, “Sorry. You wanted me to play along, didn’t you? Don’t worry. I won’t say another word.”

It took Aria a few seconds to remember the lie Renatus had told about being married, but then once she realized it was Renatus Chevinh was talking about, Aria froze, her hand on the spine of one book, “Pardon?”

“Don’t you worry, miss, I’m a quadanium steel trap! I won’t say another word on it!”

Aria looked at Chevinh straight in the eye, “No, by all means,” she waved her hand, “Please go on.”

Chevinh seemed to fall into an even deeper ease, “Why? I mean obviously we both know the Sith have been Lord Renatus’s favorite historical subject for years. If anything Sith-related finds its way to my shop, he’s the first one I call. It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Aria’s other hand dropped from the book. “I… see. I don’ know about _favorite_ historical subject—He told me he found them rather stupid.”

“Oh yes he’s given me that whole rant too, ‘Master and Apprentice destined to destroy each other—how ridiculous.’ Never stopped him from buying anything that could possibly be Sith related out of my shop.”

“You…deal a lot in Sith artifacts?” said Aria.

“No more than any other ancient fallen empire. The objects I get coming through are mostly old datafiles and the occasional book here and there. Actual artifacts are much harder to come by, you know between the Republic taking the Jedi’s side and how dangerous Sith ruins are and all that,” Chevinh smiled, “So that’s what got you two together, eh? He must have showed you his collection.”

“C-collection?” Aria repeated the word after him and then forced a laugh, “Oh please, nothing as simple as that. He’s just…charming.” Her comm suddenly started buzzing, “Do you have a restroom?” she asked.

Chevinh gestured over to a small cramped door and Aria stepped into it, then blinked blankly and said, “What were we talking about again?” as Aria closed the door and clicked open her comm.

“Cyp?” she said. A holo-projection of Cyp sprang up, but it was shaky and shot from below. Cyp was holding onto someone’s hand and had the lightsaber he had saved from the temple ignited and was blocking blaster fire desperately. 

“Galix—hold it steady—Aria—I’m at the Villa—- Val took Tepui but we don’t know where. I gave Tepui my Paguro pendant and I’m sending her coordinates to you and Renatus.”

“Don’t send them to Renatus,” Aria blurted out.

“What?” Cyp stopped running, “Why?”

“I don’t… I don’t know yet. Just get to Tepui. I’ll find Renatus and I’ll be right behind you. What about Oda?”

“Val and Tepui were looking for Oda! That’s what I’ve been saying!” said Galix.

“We’ll just have to assume he’s hiding and hope for the best,” said Cyp, “Tepui’s the one who’s in danger if it’s Val she’s disappeared with.”

“We don’t know that!” Aria and Galix spoke at the same time. Aria sighed, “But if Val’s not responding, he could be in danger, too.”

“All right,” said Cyp, running around what looked like the corner of a speeder and getting in, “Well either way I’m going to find them. May the Force be with you.”

“And with you as well,” said Aria, “And Cyp?”

“Yeah?”

“Be safe.”

“You too,” he said before more blaster fire cut in and the comm cut out. Aria took a calming breath before rushing out of the bathroom. 

“Where are you running off to?” asked Chevinh as she hurried to the door of the shop.

“Family emergency,” she said, rushing out.

The Holo-news in Nereisa’s square projected a column of smoke and several ships flying through the air.

“There’s been little word from either Assembly or Empire authorities on the recent terrorist activities at the former headquarters of now-deceased Separatist leader Count Dooku. Speculation runs wild as—-”

“The Dooku Estate…” Aria said, before rushing over to an info-kiosk and desperately searched through the massive touchscreen for the Clari-Crystalline distributor before rushing off. She burst through the doors of the Crystalline workshop, the gentle chimes announcing her arrival a stark contrast to her increasingly disheveled and distressed appearance.

“Good evening, Miss, a droid approached her, “Is there anything we can do to—-”

“Renatus Milenzo,” blurted out Aria, “Did Renatus Milenzo come by here earlier today?”

The droid tilted its head charmingly, “Nereisa CrystalWorks serves a variety of clients who want only the best—-”

“Ugh!” Aria shoved past the droid and went up to a rather shaken looking receptionist, “Renatus Milenzo—has he been here?”

“Nereisa CrystalWorks respects the privacy of its clients—” The receptionist started to say.

Aria scoffed and then waved her hand, “You will tell me everything pertaining to Renatus Milenzo.” 

The Receptionist looked blank and then spoke, “Renatus Milenzo arrived and began commissioning a large amount of Clari-Crystalline before receiving an alert on his data pad and putting the order on hold.”

“Did he say where he was going?” said Aria.

The receptionist shook her head. Aria turned on her heel and rushed out the door. It didn’t take her long to reach Nereisa’s tarmac, where Renatus’s skiff waited innocently. She almost breathed a sigh of relief, but then was nagged by a thought and punched in the access code to the ship. Aria entered the skiff and glanced off to where Renatus usually kept his hover bikes. One was missing. Wherever Renatus was, looking for him would take too much time if everyone else was in trouble. She took out her comm and looked at the coordinates Cyp had given her to Tepui’s location. Her breath caught in her throat. She had to hurry. She could only be a few minutes behind Cyp, if he had survived getting out of the villa. She took a seat in the skiff’s cockpit and activated it.

“Please be okay,” she said as the ship lifted off.


	12. Priorities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Great googly moogly it's all gone to shit.

“Shi—” Val was trying not to swear in front of, how old was Tepui? Ten? Eleven? Did Nautolans mature faster or slower than humans? Had she ever been a tadpole or something? He couldn’t get distracted now. The walls were sticking out in columns of what looked like mini lightsabers, but probably weren’t. “Okay just, stay away from the walls…they’re…stabby,” said Val. The gas had proven relatively easy in avoiding—-Val’s helmets had some filters that bought him a few seconds of protection to dive down and search for a passage out, and the fact that there was no other immediate exit away from the gas meant that the first test would largely be a test of nerve—the willingness to go toward danger and probable death if it meant defeating or escaping it. His mother had taught him something similar when he was a kid himself. Tepui was a tough and brave kid too, he figured she had to be, after everything she went through at the temple. She didn’t hesitate when he told her to drop down through the gas and follow his voice. It was impressive, but also a little scary—most things regarding Jedi or would-be Jedi seemed to fall into that category.

“Now unfortunately,” Renatus’s voice came over some unseen speakers as Val dodged another plasma rod, “The functions of this particular challenge have been somewhat…damaged. I did my best to repair them but I think they’re operating at roughly…oh…175% their usual speed? Hope you’re light on your feet in that armor.”

“Don’t you have a fu—Don’t you have a stupid warlord estate to take over?!” said Val, grabbing Tepui and pulling her out of the way of another plasma rod while stepping out of the way of another column.

“It’s called multitasking,” said Renatus, “Obviously something you’re going to need to get better at if…well…not that it’s going to make a difference.”

Tepui’s small size was proving more convenient for her at this stage. She seemed to quickly figure out about crawling on top of the horizontal columns and moving toward the top—the big issue, Val realized, was whether or not she would be big enough to clear the gaps between columns as they climbed higher up. His mind was a scramble of trying to remember the stories he had heard about the Box, wondering what was going on with Cyp and Aria, and making sure Tepui didn’t die.

“You’re having fun watching this, aren’t you?” said Val.

“It’s about being thorough—-I can’t just _walk off_ and—” there was a faint sound of beeping and Val heard Renatus softly say, “Shit…” over the speakers, “Well the bloody Assembly’s here. Now I have to activate the whole stupid defensive grid for the estate. Don’t go anywhere!” The speakers clicked off.

“Renatus?” Val shouted after him, “Renatus!” He turned off the voice amplifier on his helmet and muttered a stream of expletives he hoped the helmet would muffle before turning it back on again. He climbed after Tepui, grunting with each column he was able to leap across and really regretting not having his jetpack on him when they went to go look for Oda. He finally reached the column Tepui was on and she nervously glanced at the gap to the next one.

“Can you make it?” said Val.

“I don’t know…” Tepui said, glancing down at the floor where plasma rods were sticking out at random.

“Okay,” said Val, picking her up under her arms, “I’m going to throw you on the count of three…one—“ he glanced over to his immediate left where another column tipped with another plasma rod emerged from the wall and started to crawl across the column he was standing on, “Three!” he tossed her across the gap and she nearly overshot it but gripped onto the edge of the column. Val leapt over the gap after her and helped her up, narrowly stepping out of the way of another plasma rod as he did so.

“You should have left,” she said, trying to catch her breath.

“And join Renatus? Are you kidding me?” said Val.

“You’d at least have a chance to stop him if I wasn’t here…” said Tepui.

“Come on, kid, you don’t know—-”

He noticed something yellow fall out of the front of her tunic and his eyes widened at the little pendant bouncing at the end of its chord.

“Cyp…” he said quietly.  
“What?” said Tepui.

“Look, you’re doing fine. We can get through this, all right? Trust in…your…Force…thing. We’ll make it.” 

“How do you know?” said Tepui.

“I don’t, but I’m sure as hell not giving up,” said Val, helping her onto his back and leaping onto the next column and clambering up into the next chamber.

—

“How close are we?” said Cyp, glancing over at Galix as the airspeeder flew over the mountains and trees of Serenno. Rain was falling on the airspeeder’s viewport in sheets. 

“It should be straight ahead…” said Galix.

“Past that column of smoke with all the speeders buzzing around it, right?” said Cyp, leaning forward in his seat.”

“Uh…” Galix glanced at the comm again, “I’m pretty sure it’s…in …that area…”

Cyp paled and he rolled his fingers’ grip on the yoke of the speeder. Crackling suddenly came over the main comm on the speeder. A holo someone in a Grand Assembly uniform popped up on the comm.

“Your repulsorcraft does not have the approved access codes to enter this area—-civilians are ordered to leave—shit—” he cut himself off and leaned over to fire a few blaster bolts over a makeshift barrier, “Look, turn around! We can’t afford to babysit civil—”

Cyp shut off the comm and furrowed his brow and leaned forward. He felt Galix’s eyes on him and could feel the young twi’lek’s distress through the Force.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” he said, not taking his eyes away from the viewport of the speeder.

“I think stuff is getting… less okay…” said Galix as the column of smoke got closer.

“Well the comm says Tepui’s still here, right?” said Cyp, trying just as hard to convince himself as he was convincing Galix, “What we need to do is stay calm and—-” the proximity alarm on the speeder started blaring and Cyp suddenly veered right as a massive blast of plasma barreled past the speeder. “What sort of—-” He pulled the speeder upward to narrowly dodge another blast. He looked to his right and down to see several turrets firing at the little speeder, “Please tell me your safety belts are fastened,” he said, not looking at Galix.

“Yeah they’re—-LOOK OUT!” Galix was securing himself with one hand on the dash and the other against his viewport as Cyp moved left so hard the speeder turned on its side to dodge another blast. 

“Why are they shooting at us!?” said Galix as Cyp righted the speeder again.

“I don’t think it’s the Assembly…” said Cyp as they finally pulled out over a short ridge and the source of the column of smoke finally came into view. “Oh no…” He had only seen distant orbital pictures from high-risk recon missions of it before, but he knew the Dooku estate when he saw it. He turned the speeder into a corkscrew to dodge the volley of several turrets, Galix screaming all the while. A nervous burst of laughter escaped Cyp, then he awkwardly said, “um…hold on,” then he slammed forward on the accelerator. 

“So she’s on the estate?” said Cyp, Galix was still screaming, “Galix!” said Cyp and Galix stopped screaming, “Focus! Tepui! Where does the comm say she is?”

Galix glanced at the comm, “Left! Turn left now!”

Cyp veered left and saw some structure past the main relay towers of the estate. A massive cube? The boost in speed was enough to make it past another few turret-based blasts from the ground, but suddenly the whole speeder jerked violently from its left rear repulsor. Cyp was half steering, half fighting with the controls and could smell smoke as the Dooku estate grew closer and closer. An alarm started sounding off and flashing red on the speeder’s naviscreen and Cyp gritted his teeth. Left rear repulsor was down.

“Cyp?!” Galix said, pressing himself further back in his seat. 

“It only grazed us, we can make it—” He said before there was a roar of fire and a rumbling underneath the speeder and even more alarms started blaring as the naviscreen started flashing the words, CENTRAL CHASSIS REPULSORS NON-FUNCTIONING. They were losing altitude and without a functioning central repulsor, there was no way to land safely. Impact was going to happen, there was no way around that now. “Are we still heading toward Tepui?”

“Yes, but Cyp, we—-”

“I know!” said Cyp as he started hitting buttons on the naviscreen to divert power to the front repulsors to decrease momentum. 

“CYP!” Galix said and pointed out the front port. Cyp looked up. The cube was no longer a distant worry, but coming up fast. Cyp let out a yell and slammed a hand down on the ‘eject’ button on the naviscreen and the transparisteel slid back and both of them shot out of the speeder and into the air as it crashed into one of the topmost corners of the cube structure. The seat-chutes unfolded and caught the hot smoky air as both of them drifted down, the rain pattering on the tops of their parachutes and stinging their faces with needle-like droplets and smoke when the wind changed. Cyp glanced down to see a freighter parked near the base of the cube.

“There!” he said, looking at Galix, “That’s his ship!”

“What are we going to do once we get down—” Galix started to say but then suddenly a blaster bolt punched through the Nylocanvas of his parachute and he started descending a lot faster.

“Galix—!” Cyp called but realized Galix was still falling slow enough and was close enough to the ground so that impact wouldn’t really hurt him. He exhaled. Well arriving on the scene was already a disaster and a half. He heard the screech of a blaster and suddenly one of the straps securing his own seat’s parachute was loose, the strap on fire and flapping in the breeze and he was plummeting. He wasn’t a jedi, he was an archivist he couldn’t—no, he couldn’t let them down. He extended a hand toward the flapping strap still connected to the parachute and it froze in mid-air, suddenly sending him spinning through the air from a lopsided parachute, he gritted his teeth and did his best to shake off the panic and disorientation from whirling through the rain and continued stretching his hand and reaching out with his mind toward that strap until he could snatch it with his hand.

He nearly released with the force until he realized that letting go would probably let the strap rip his arm out of its socket, so he held on. He glanced over at Galix, his seat landing with a hard bounce on the ground and falling over on its side. As soon as the ground seemed a safe distance he ignited the lightsaber he had been keeping on his belt and cut himself out of the seat and pushed off, turning the lightsaber off in mid air then tucking and rolling on the ground over to Galix’s seat which was now covered by its parachute. He unsheathed the lightsaber again to cut through the canvas to reveal Galix struggling at the buckles of his safety harness. He cut off the straps of the harness easily and held a hand out to Galix and helped him up. 

“Are you all right?” said Cyp.

“Yeah, I mean no, but…yeah…” said Galix, he looked down at the comm which he was still gripping, “It says Tepui’s right near us,” he said before suddenly blaster fire blazed right past his head. 

“Civilian!” A Serenno assembly guard ran up to them, “You’re in a dangerous restricted area! You need to leave before—” Blaster fire punched through his neck and Galix screamed. 

Cyp glanced over to see several, well they weren’t exactly B1 battle droids—-certainly not standard. They looked like they had been pieced together out of all sorts of bits of scrap metal in the vague shape of B1 battle droids. They fired at him and he instinctively brought up the lightsaber and deflected a blast back. Once Cyp was able to deflect one blaster bolt into a droid, the rest of the ramshackle group of droids turned their attention off of a clearly ragged group of Assembly guards and started firing at him and Galix. Cyp did his best to deflect the blasts, but the group of droids, with their attention diverted, were quickly flanked by another contingent Assembly guards. Cyp looked over at the freighter and then to Galix, who was frozen in place. “You need to take cover,” he said, grabbing Galix’s arm and running over to the freighter, deflecting blaster bolts from several different directions as he went. The entry ramp of the freighter was open. Odd…He rushed up the ramp with Galix in tow and said, “Stay behind me.” He held his lightsaber at the ready, “Val?! Come on out you coward!” He walked through the freighter, his lightsaber humming slightly, “You could have just brought the younglings in for a bounty—what are you doing here?” There was no response.

“He wouldn’t bring us in for a bounty…” said Galix.

“You don’t know that!” said Cyp, looking over his shoulder at the twi’lek.

“I know it better than you!” said Galix, “If he wanted the bounty he could have just…taken us all away when you left but he didn’t! We just played and watched a holo and he got really worried when he couldn’t find Oda and he was just saying stuff about not wanting to let you or Aria down!”

“He could have lied—-” Cyp started to say.

“When that explosion went off, he told us to hide! He wouldn’t bring us here! Everything’s exploding here!” Galix flushed and then seemed to be thinking hard before blurting, “He’d only be here if he was in trouble, too!”

“Galix—-he’s a _Mandalorian warrior._ His kind have hated and fought against our Order for—” Cyp turned to look into the cockpit to see a large customized blaster rifle, practically taller than Galix, leaning against the pilot’s seat, “millennia…” he said softly. He sheathed his lightsaber. No Mandalorian worth his salt would be caught in a place like this without his blaster. Not willingly. He stepped forward and picked up the rifle, finding it far heavier than expected, and slung it on his shoulder. “He _is_ in trouble,” said Cyp. 

“I told you!” said Galix as Cyp rushed toward the entry ramp of the ship. Cyp paused at the doorway of a closet that had apparently had its door blasted off to see a jetpack in the center of the floor.

“Stay on the ship,” said Cyp as he picked up the jetpack and slung it on his other free shoulder.

“But I—” Galix started to say.

“That’s an order from your general, commander,” said Cyp, heading down the entry ramp.

“Commander?” Galix stopped and repeated after him, then repeated the word to himself in awe as Cyp reached the bottom of the ramp, “Commander…” he blinked, “Wait—Can I even be a padawan if I didn’t take the trials? Hey—wait you didn’t take the trials! You’re not a gen—-!”

Cyp hit the ‘close’ button at the bottom of the ramp and the ship closed behind him with Galix’s protests dissolving from basic into Ryl before being silenced by the locking mechanism. “No, I’m not a general,” he said in agreement. He brushed his red hair, soaking wet and sticking to his forehead with the rain, and looked to the massive cube structure, now smoking on one corner. There weren’t any obvious entrances to the structure, so Cyp spent several panicked seconds running around the bottom of it (while cutting down any straggling droids that came at him) looking for one. It didn’t take him long to decide that he would have to make one.

He sheathed the lightsaber and unslung the Mandalorian blaster rifle from his shoulder and tried his best to figure out how to hold it and point it. He fired and while he was worried about breaking his collarbone with the kickback of the thing (that happened, right?), it easily spurted out some blue rings that uselessly burst against the bottom of the cube. Cyp’s brow furrowed until he remembered, “Oh. Stun. Blasters have stun settings,” it took him another several seconds turning the (irritatingly heavy) rifle over to find the power setting and switch it back, and by the time he was pretty sure he had set the blaster to full power, a blaster bolt whizzed past his head and he instinctively turned, pointed, and squeezed the trigger.

The blaster bolt flew into the droid that was firing at him and it exploded, but the kickback from the blaster punched into his shoulder hard and jerked the rifle upward enough to actually throw Cyp’s center of gravity off and send him staggering back on his heels several steps. “Okay,” he said, spreading his stance and pointing the blaster rifle upward. He fired and the kickback still managed to knock him on his back and the ensuing explosion prompted him to scramble out of the way of large scraps of falling metal. “Okay,” he said, looking at the flaming hole he managed to create in the bottom of the cube. Now he realized the entrance he had created was too high for him to jump into. Well….maybe if he used the Force…Cyp inhaled and cleared his mind, banned all the distractions of the battlefield of scrappy droids and underprepared Serenno Assembly guards, and leapt.

He made it about a foot and a half off the ground. He cleared his throat and tried again. Well, two feet…that was better. He tried a third time and then saw blaster fire narrowly blaze past him, turned on his heel and shot with the blaster rifle, got knocked back by the kickback _again,_ then decided now probably wasn’t the time to start catching up on the decade of Force training he missed. He still had to get in there. He still had to find Tepui. He had to think—-Jetpack. he slung the other strap of the jetpack onto his other shoulder and then glanced over the front for anything that might turn it on. There was nothing. Well how the hell did Mandalorians turn the damn things on? He unslung it and started fumbling with it until he found one switch towards the bottom of it and tested it—and was suddenly yanked off of his feet and upward, desperately gripping onto one strap of the jetpack as it shot straight up and into the hole he had blasted into the cube. almost instantly it banged against the ceiling and Cyp hit the switch again to turn it off, then desperately flailed out with one arm and managed to grab a bit of rebar sticking out of the hole he had made. It took an absurd amount of his strength to lift the jetpack with one arm and fling it onto the floor in front of the hole, before grabbing another bit of metal and pulling himself up. He caught his breath and hefted the jetpack onto his shoulder again before running down a narrow hallway, as wide as it was tall.

—-

As soon as they had managed to get out of what Val referred to as “the stabby wall room,” they entered another room, this one featuring a single raised pedestal in the center that was noticeably empty. A voice which Val recognized as one of Renatus’s servant droids came over the speakers.

“For this room, the pedestal at the center contains a solution that will make you able to pass through the ray shield to disable it.”  
“What ray shie—-” Val started to say but then the walls suddenly lit up with a screen of red light, “Oh.”

“The problem is that the solution is poisonous to every other species.”

“Hey—uhhh the pedestal’s empty,” said Val.

There was a pause before the droid spoke over the speakers again. “Oh. Unfortunate. Goodbye then, Guests Val and Tepui.”

The ray shields started converging in towards them. “Shit,” Val said, looking around the room for any way out. There was none. Only ray shields converging on all sides, their hums growing louder with each second and the floor falling away, bit by bit. “Come on, think,” he said to himself, “Think—think—think—figure it out…” What would Mom do? He grabbed Tepui’s shoulder. “Stay close,” he said as the ray shields closed in more and more. “Come on,” he said looking around, “There has to be another way—”

“Val,” Tepui put her hand over his.

“Don’t worry, we can figure it out!” said Val, trying very hard to hide the increasing panic in his voice.

“Val, it’s okay… you got us this far,” said Tepui.

“Don’t talk like that! You’re a kid! You shouldn’t have to talk like that!” Val blurted out. The ray shields were only a couple feet away now. His eyes flicked around. There had to be something. He didn’t want to die in a box. And then there was Aria and hell, even Cyp—Cyp—he glanced at the paguro pendant hanging around Tepui’s neck, its little yellow glow dull compared to the red light of the ray shields. Even if Cyp could find them, there was no way he would come in the next few seconds. The ray shields were close enough so that he had to duck down now to keep the topmost part of it from phasing into his head and killing him instantly. Tepui pulled close to him and hid her face against the breastplate of his armor. “I’m sorry,” the increasing claustrophobia seemed to press the word out of him.

Suddenly there was a tearing, muffled roaring sound of the impact of metal on metal and a dampened explosion and the ray shields flickered and buzzed and crackled before phasing out completely. 

“The Box has sustained excessive exterior damage,” the droid’s voice came over the speakers again, “Attempting to re-route power to ray shield gen—”

“Move…” said Val glancing down at Tepui, looking at the switch on the other side of the room, “Move!”

They rushed forward and leapt across the gap, Val smacking his forearm against the switch, prompting another door to open and both of them rushing onward as the ray shields re-activated behind them. 

“What happened?” said Tepui as they headed into the next room and Val looked around.

“I don’t know…” said Val, feeling along the walls. Maybe if the Box had sustained enough damage, whatever systems that were keeping them trapped in each room might be faulting too. Renatus did mention he had a hard time keeping the thing running as is.

“You have made it to the final room. Congratulations,” the droid’s voice came over the speakers.

“Final room…” a nervous laugh escaped Val, he turned to Tepui, “Final room!” he said excitedly. Tepui didn’t look exactly thrilled.

“The final test is one of marksmanship,” the droid’s voice went on. Val rolled his shoulders. He was ready. If ever there was a test in this damned box he knew was meant for him, it was this one. Everything he had trained for had lead up to this. He remembered the feel of his first sniper blaster back on Mandalore, the feel of his mother’s hands over his guiding them to the proper holding positions, shooting at scrap targets at the edges of the domed cities with nothing but the sound of the air filters of his helmet and the screech of blaster fire and that rush of power when he first pulled the trigger. He was ready. He was ready to get out of here, get Tepui somewhere safe, find Renatus and kick his ass and personally deliver him to Aria for, he assumed, further ass-kicking. If there was ever a moment in his life where everything he knew and had learned would culminate into something that would save him, maybe even prove him (he still hesitated at the thought of this word) heroic, it would be this one.

“Your blaster rifle will appear at your left,” the droid announced as a panel opened on the wall to Val’s left revealing empty pegs. “Oh,” the droid said with a lack of remorse even noteworthy for a droid, “My mistake. The rifle has not been replaced.”

“Tepui, cover your eyes,” said Val. Tepui rolled her eyes then covered them and Val gestured with his hands in what was known amongst Mandalorians as “the Kalevalan salute”

“This Box session is being recorded for system improvement and posterity. It is requested you refrain from vulgar gestures.”

“Tepui cover your ears,” said Val.

“I don’t have ears. I have tympana,” said Tepui.

“Cover your tympana,” said Val.

Tepui put her hands over the sides of her head and Val shouted, “FUCK OFF!” towards the speakers. 

“Master Renatus said you conducted yourself with a sense of dignity and honor that was unusual amongst your kind,” the droid said and Val’s hand balled into a fist at his side, “I suppose he shall be disappointed but unsurprised to learn how typical a Mandalorian you turned out to be.” 

“You can tell him I’ll break his neck pulling his head out of his ass when I get out of here! Report that to him!” shouted Val when suddenly he was cut off by a loud clunking noise and he noticed a large part of the floor he and Tepui were standing on suddenly fell downward and in place of the floor tiles, there was a pit with columns of flames shooting upward. Tepui gasped and stepped back and Val paled. At least the ray shields in the other room promised a quick, though far from painless, death. Val didn’t want to think how long it would take the fire to make it through his armor.

“At this point the fall-away of the panels will coincide with a time limit. Without striking the targets there is no escape.”

“You said that last room,” said Val.

“These flamethrowers require a fraction of the power of the ray shields. Even in the highly unlikely event that the Box sustains the same amount of damage, I have diverted all tertiary power and functions of the box to ensure your obliteration.” 

“This thing is supposed to be beatable, isn’t it?” said Val.

“Originally, yes. For you, no,” said the droid as another row of tiles fell away to reveal more flamethrowers.

“Well shit,” said Val, as the speakers clicked off once more. He glanced over at Tepui, “Hey so…uh…no pressure, but like… y’know if they started training you on that stuff—now would be a really good time for you to like… do some of that Force stuff?”

—-

Cyp blocked several blaster bolts with his lightsaber and extended his arm, forcing the blaster in the B1 droid’s hands upwards as he charged forward and then cut the droid in half. The interior halls of the cube, or at least its maintenance tunnels, were lightly guarded, though the fact that they were guarded at all concerned him. He glanced down at the comm in his hand and the blipping signal on it growing brighter as he moved forward. “Please be alive,” he said, softly. He managed to find a small maintenance elevator and hit a button on it that said ‘Control Center’ and hoped that was the right one. As the door closed and the lift thrummed upward, Cyp glanced down at the lightsaber in his hand. He didn’t want to think about the temple but he was. He had grabbed it off a corpse. He remembered the sight of it—-the face unrecognizable, obscured by hair and burns and blood and the scorch marks on the robes. _That was a Jedi,_ was all he had thought as he sprinted from the corpse to the pile of rubble where the remaining younglings had been hiding, _That was a Jedi and he’s dead. We are not Jedi._ No. He shook his head. He couldn’t think that. The doors opened and he stepped through.

A droid, he remembered it as the first droid he had seen near Renatus’s skiff back when they were escaping Coruscant. It raised a blaster on him and he held up his lightsaber, it fired one bolt which he blocked with the lightsaber and the reflected hit the control panel behind the droid, sparking a small fire. It was the fire that first drew Cyp’s eye, then immediately his eye fell on a screen featuring a misshapen figure suspended above flames, then he realized it was not one misshapen figure, but a small green figure clinging to a larger red-and-bronze one. The droid bent over the controls to try and get the fire under control but then Cyp heard a voice.

“Is that Cyp?” the voice came from the screen. The red and bronze figure. He knew the voice.

“Cyp!” he heard Tepui’s voice, “Shut it off! Get us out!”

“Te—-” he started to say, but the droid fired again and singed between his hand and the lightsaber, forcing it out of his hands and sparking through the droid’s arm, cutting its blaster-bearing hand off at the wrist and then sparking against the floor but no he couldn’t stoop to grab it again, the droid was stooping to grab its blaster with its remaining hand and then with a strength he had not been previously aware of, or maybe unconsciously the Force, Cyp yanked Val’s heavy rifle off his shoulder and then slammed the butt of it into the droid’s head, smashing it against the control panel. The droid twitched and sparked and convulsed and the control panel buckled under the force of Cyp’s strike as he brought the rifle up and brought it down again, smashing the droid’s head into scrap against the control panel repeatedly until the droid was still.

“Holy shit…” he heard Val’s voice crackle from the screen.

“Don’t swear in front of her!” Cyp said. The admonition fell out of him automatically and it only partially hit him how ridiculous caring about something like that at this point was. He picked up and sheathed the lightsaber, then desperately looked over the remaining intact control panel. “Shut off…” he said quietly, “Please tell me I didn’t smash the shut-off…”

“Hey, Cyp, don’t mean to rush you, but it’s getting kind of toasty in here. Like asphyxiating toasty,” said Val, and Cyp glanced up at the screen. Tepui was clinging to him and he was supporting her with one arm, while the other gripped a whipcord he had managed to grapple into the ceiling panels and the flames licked at the soles of his boots.

“I’m looking! I’m looking!” said Cyp and his eyes flicked up from the screen to see a large red switch conveniently marked ‘Box Shutdown.’ He reached up and flipped it and the flames died down from the screen. Val immediately released the grapple on his whipcord and both he and Tepui fell with a grunt and a thud. A door automatically opened and Cyp rushed through it to see them. Tepui was struggling to her feet when Cyp dropped to his knees in front of her.

“Are you all right?” he said, leaning forward to check her over. She suddenly whipped her arms around his waist and squeezed him tight. Val grunted and slowly got to his feet as well.

“You saved us,” her voice was muffled into Cyp’s shirt.

“Saved…?” Cyp repeated the word, “I didn’t—-I’m just an archivist—I’m not a—” he blinked several times as it occurred to him how much he had been doing alone. He hadn’t really thought about it, being largely distracted by the near blinding fear that the last scraps of his Order, that innocent children would die. True, there had been numerous guards of the Grand Assembly of Serenno keeping the droids occupied—but he was just realizing now that he had rushed into a war-zone and not given it a second thought—-he _fought_ —with a _lightsaber_ —he used the _Force._ All this time he had kept saying he wasn’t a Jedi, and he wasn’t but… no, he couldn’t think of that now. They were still very much in danger. He cleared his throat, “Are you hurt?”

Tepui shook her head. “No, Val kept me safe.”

“Val kept you sa—” Cyp started to say then found himself caught up in an even tighter embrace than Tepui’s that hauled him to his feet and then to his tiptoes. 

“You’re hugging me,” Cyp said.

“I’m hugging you,” Val agreed.

“Did—did you hit your head or something…?” said Cyp.

“Cyp,” Val broke out of the hug but kept one hand on Cyp’s shoulder as he pulled off his helmet with the other, “You saved my life. You kicked that droid’s ass!”

“Ah well… You know I just used the…the uh…” he mimed the movement with rifle as he had done in the garage a couple days earlier, “The butt-stroke.”

Val snorted, then gently punched Cyp in the shoulder, “Nice butt-stroke, Jedi.”

“I’m not—” Cyp started then laughed a little, “Thank you.” His smile faded, “You were protecting her this whole time and I thought you were—” he scoffed, “I’m sorry. I assumed the worst about you.”

“ _I_ assume the worst about me,” said Val shrugging and putting his helmet back on.

“That was Renatus’s droid…” said Cyp, “It’s him. He’s behind this.”

“Yeah,” said Val, “He’s a Shith.”

“Sith,” said Tepui, “And he’s not… not really.”

“We need to call Aria,” Val and Cyp said at the same time.

—-

Aria was rubbing makeup off her eyes as Renatus’s skiff flew over a ridge of mountains to reveal several columns of smoke coming up from the Dooku estate in the distance. Truth be told, she didn’t consider herself a very good pilot, she honestly wouldn’t like piloting anything n these weather conditions. Renatus’s ship though, was a very good ship. Her comm started buzzing and she answered it.

“Cyp?”

“Aria—You’re all right. You have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice—” Cyp said over the sound of blaster fire, “You have to listen to us—Renatus—” 

“Aria! Renatus is a piece of shit! He put me and Tepui in a murder Box! Don’t trust him! Kick his ass!” Val’s voice sounded in the background, then there was shouting and more blaster fire.

“I just said cover me while I make this call! This is the only place i can get a sig—” the comm suddenly crackled.

“Cyp?” said Aria.

“Tepui—Galix—” the comm kept cutting out, “Alive—-signal—can’t—Ren—Sith—not—droids—-Val’s freighter can—”

“Cyp, you’re cutting out,” said Aria she squinted at the screen in front of her, “Some kind of jamming signal?”

“Aria if——-happens-—I—-you,”

“Cyp you’re going to need to repeat that—something keeps jamming you.”

“I—-” Cyp’s comm cut out completely. 

“Kriff…” muttered Aria and attempted to get the comm back up but instead a different face and voice came up over the hologram.

“I’m sorry about all this. I really am. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go,” Renatus’s voice crackled on the hologram.

“Renatus—what did you do?” said Aria. 

“I never wanted to hurt any of you—-” said Renatus.

“Hurt—who did you hurt!?” said Aria, “What did you do?!”

“We can still fix this!” said Renatus, “I can still fix this! It’s a huge mess but I can still fix it! I need your help though. I can’t do it without you…”

“Renatus—-I received a transmission from my friends that I have reason to believe you’re blocking. Val mentioned a…murder box… Cyp mentioned Sith. I’m going to ask you some questions and if you have any respect for me or our friendship, you will answer truthfully. Do you understand?”

“Is this a mind trick?” said Renatus.

“I can’t mind trick you over the comm, Renatus, and even if I could—I’m choosing to give you a chance to tell me these things of your own free will.”  
“And if I don’t tell you the truth?” said Renatus.

“Well then I guess you’ll prove Val and Cyp right about whatever the hell they were saying, won’t you?” said Aria.

“How will you know?” said Renatus.

“I’ll be arriving at the Dooku estate within the next few minutes. I suppose I’ll find out if you were telling the truth then.”  
Renatus paused. “Okay. What questions?”

“You collect Sith artifacts. You have a collection. I found this out from Chevinh. Why?”

Renatus sighed and ran a hand through his hair, “Aria—-we both know a Force that encompasses all life in the galaxy can’t be broken down to something as simple as a light side and dark side. You know it better than me, probably. I first started collecting them because… because the Jedi weren’t going to try and learn anything from them anytime soon. I collected them for the same reason I went to your Jedi Archives. Someone needs to save them. Someone needs to learn from them—maybe find something that… that they can share with the galaxy—-to help it. The Empire is coming for us all. It’s going to crush any attempts at rebellion unless we figure out new ways to fight—-unless we figure out how to move past arbitrary ideas of ‘light’ and ‘darkness’ and instead forge a path that takes the best of both—-”

“There is no ‘best’ part of the Dark side,” said Aria, “Those artifacts twisted you. I can help you.”  
“You’re letting your fear and suspicion blind you!” said Renatus, “You’re smarter than this, Aria. You’re stronger than this! There’s a whole wellspring of power in you—-something that can take all of the hurt this wretched galaxy has inflicted on you, and push back. We both felt it that night with the geo-compressor!”

Aria sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Next question: What did you do to Val and Tepui?”

“Nothing.”

“Renatus.”

“Nothing _directly_ —- Val… trespassed… and accidentally activated a protocol in my droid hive. One meant to secure the Dooku estate in the event of a full-scale imperial occupation. S4ZA responded accordingly to his trespassing. He was originally put in the Box to prevent hm from becoming a liability in case I could still shut things down in regards to the protocol. But—-as it turns out…my droid-builder was… far more successful than previously anticipated and now I have a small army attacking the Dooku Estate. So at this point it’s either finish the job, or lose everything.”

“A liability?” said Aria.

“I couldn’t let him tell you prematurely about the Sith artifacts—You wouldn’t understand… not until I could help you understand—-”

“You thought you could push me, bit by bit towards the dark side—” Aria’s grip tightened on the controls of the ship.

“No! I don’t want to change you! I want to see the real you! The one unbridled by an extinct order’s antiquated dogma!”

“The Jedi are not extinct,” Aria spoke through gritted teeth, “Master Obi-Wan said…” she rolled her grip on the ships controls, “He said we need to persevere. To trust in the Force.”  
 _“Where is Master Obi-Wan, Aria?!”_ Renatus’s voice hiked up high and manic, _“Where is he!?”_

Aria felt tears blur her vision and wiped them away with one hand.

Renatus seemed to catch himself and then huffed a little. “You think you’re the one who needs to help me but I’m the one who needs to help you,” said Renatus, “We can build something to fight the Empire together. We can forge a new Order together. And it can start here.”

A bitter laugh half choked by a sob escaped Aria, “At a Sith war-lord’s mansion. With you trying to kill my friends.”  
“A few days ago Mandalorian garbage was going to turn you in for a bounty!” said Renatus, “We don’t need him!”

“Tepui was in the…the murder box too…” said Aria.

Renatus’s mouth hung open for a second and he cleared his throat, “Yes… unfortunate.”

“You were going to kill a child,” said Aria.

“You’re—you’re not looking at the big picture,” said Renatus.

“A child,” Aria repeated, she looked out the viewport, “I’m coming up on the Dooku estate. Last question: Did…we ever mean anything to you? Me, Cyp, Val, the younglings… were we ever anything beyond little pieces you would try and move toward your bigger goals?”

Renatus paused for a long time. “Honestly, I think….I think you’re all the best friends I’ve ever had.”

Aria really didn’t know what to say to that. “I think we have very different priorities, Renatus.”

“Yes, I understand,” said Renatus.

“I’m coming to stop you,” said Aria.

“I understand that too. I hope you understand I can’t let you do that.” His image on the comm shifted and he sighed and Aria half-realized he had thought he turned his comm off. “Shame,” he said, taking out his datapad, “She was pretty too….” he said, scrolling through it.

“Renatus—I’m still here—” said Aria.

“Hm?” he glanced up, “Oh—oh! I”m sorry. Oh I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about the ship,” he didn’t break eye contact as he pressed something on his datapad and Aria saw a red number suddenly flash on her navscreen and start counting down. She remembered the speeder bike at the Dooku estate. She didn’t hesitate. She ignited her saberstaff, desperately cut a circle through the transparisteel of the viewport, kicked it out, crawled through the smoldering hole, and in two swift steps leapt off of the nose of the skiff as it exploded and was tumbling, down, down, into the rain and darkness.


	13. The Catch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy the end is coming into sight.

“Aria? Aria!” Cyp sighed and shut off the comm, then unsheathed his lightsaber and dipped out from behind he and Val’s makeshift barricade of ammo crates from the Grand Assembly and blocked several more blaster bolts from the oncoming forces of droids. He looked back at Val’s ship, where he and Val had essentially thrown Tepui onto the entry ramp and shut it while yelling at her and Galix not to touch anything, then glanced over to see Val staring at him.

“What?” said Cyp.

“You said you loved her,” said Val. Cyp had a hard time combining the visual of a Mandalorian helmet and the words coming from it. 

“Well I’m pretty sure she didn’t hear me,” said Cyp, “The comm kept cutting out and—Cover fire! You’re supposed to be laying down cover fire!”

“I can multitask,” said Val, rising up and shooting another droid, “Glad you’re finally saying it, is all.”

“You’re glad I…?” Cyp glanced over from blocking several blaster bolts and trailed off, then had another bolt come far too close to his head for comfort and resumed his focus, deflecting blaster shots from one droid into the others. Val shot out his whipcord and it wrapped around the torso of a droid and he yanked back. Cyp braced one foot against their barricade and sliced the head off the droid as it jerked within range of his lightsaber.

“Nice one,” said Val, yanking the headless droid over their cover and seizing its blaster, popping out the plasma cartridge and reloading his rifle. 

“Well you had the chord—-wait, you’re glad?” said Cyp. Val cocked his rifle and then resumed fire at the oncoming droids.

“Should… I not be glad?” Val said slowly.

“No—I mean—I’m glad you’re glad—-just… I thought—Never mind, it’s stupid.”

“What’d you think?” said Val.

Cyp ducked behind the barricade as a new flank of droids came in, somehow out of nowhere and began firing at them. “You know I can never tell whether you’re actually that clueless or if you’re just messing with me,” he said as Val ducked down next to him and both huddled against the crates and wreckage for cover.

“It’s usually a bit of both,” said Val, bringing down the rifle, “But yeah, what’d you think?”

“I thought—-” Cyp started but Val stood up and laid down a hail of blaster fire, considerably thinning out the horde of droids before being forced back down again by retaliatory fire. 

“Sorry, what?” said Val.

“I thought…well…you know, you’re…tall,” said Cyp.

“I’m tall,” Val said, partially in agreement partially to make sure Cyp knew what he was saying.

“And—and you have a _jawline,_ ” said Cyp.

“A jawline? said Val.

“And you go on _adventures,_ ” said Cyp, standing up and talking and deflecting blaster bolts from the droids at the same time, “You meet new people,” he deflected a blaster bolt, “And see new places,” he deflected another, “You get scars with stories behind them,” he deflected another, “You haven’t spent your life,” deflect, “dusting and straightening archive shelves,” deflect, “And going ‘Yes I’m sure we have that in our records,’” deflect, “‘let me fetch it for you,’” he deflected one more blaster bolt which managed to hit a small cache of grenades left behind by some Assembly guards and ended up consuming an entire row of droids in fire. The ensuing explosion visibly shook him and he glanced back at Val, who was staring at him, but again, Cyp had no idea of Val’s expression with the helmet. He glanced back at the row of flaming droids and then stammered out “C-cover fire!”

“Yeah. Cover fire,” said Val, bringing his rifle up again and firing at the few remaining droids. He saw something out of the corner of his eye. A ship too nice to be Grand Assembly regulation. He brought down the rangefinder on his helmet and enhanced the image on his macrobinocular faceplate. It was Renatus’s ship, but he doubted Renatus would be flying away from this mess, and it was definitely getting closer.

“Aria,” he heard Cyp say, “Her call came from Renatus’s ship.” Val dialed up the magnification on his rangefinder to maximum and squinted. He didn’t expect to be able to see past the viewport, but he saw something green sparking along the nose of the ship as it came closer, then brought the rangefinder up as the ship was almost overhead.The green spark turned to a green line. Her lightsaber? Why would she be drawing her lightsaber on the ship? 

“Val? What do you see?” Cyp said then the green line suddenly dipped off of the ship and was falling.

Maybe he meant to say something reassuring to Cyp who was panicking as the ship above the falling green line was suddenly engulfed in flames and Cyp made a noise like a half strangled scream, but instead Val just kind of shouted “JETPACK!” in Cyp’s face, hit a panel on his gauntlets and took off.

Val didn’t know if his jetpack would be fast enough to reach her in time. She was smart though—without the two faint glowing lines of her saberstaff he would have easily lost her in the dark and downpour. He could almost hear her voice, the way she scoffed and said, _‘You have a jetpack’_ back on Lyalli what seemed like ages ago but even that seemed to thin out and fall off to the side of his mind the way stars turned to lines of light in hyperspace, it was only one thought amidst an anxious storm of, _Use your magic. Use that Force you keep talking about. Please let me go faster. Please. I’m not fast enough. Fucking Force, if you’re worth anything don’t let her down. Please. Please. Don’t let me screw this up._

He had the thrusters on full blast and even had some power diverted from the stabilizers for more speed. As he got closer and closer to her he realized he couldn’t barrel into her at full speed or that could break several ribs or worse. Her hand was extended toward the ground, but it was difficult to tell if she was actually successfully slowing herself down.Then she looked at him. She sheathed her lightsaber and flailed out her hands toward him, reaching. He turned off his thrusters and gravity and inertia did the rest.

It wasn’t a catch so much as a grappling collision. They smacked into each other with an unceremonious _whump_ and the impact of Aria sent them spinning through the air and toward the ground for several terrifying seconds as they scrambled to get a grip on each other before Val hit several panels on his gauntlets and the thrusters and stabilizers fired back up. Head spinning, stomach turning, he managed to right himself, noting the direction of the rainfall. Aria had secured herself with her skinny arms about his shoulders . She was hyperventilating, her eyes flickering around, as if she was still trying to fully gauge what had happened, try and deal with an imminent attack, and think of what they could do next, all at once.

Val’s own breath seemed far away from him but he managed to say, “Hey—hey you’re okay. We’re okay.” Her eyes stopped flicking around and she looked at him. “Are you hurt?” asked Val, pressing a panel on his gauntlet so that the jetpack started a safe descent as they headed toward the main tarmac of the Dooku estate.

“No—I mean—yes—he—he—blew up the—” she shook her head, then paused, “You caught me.”

_‘Caught’ is generous,_ thought Val. “Yeah…” he said, “I got you.”

“Cyp—The younglings—” she started to say.

“Cyp’s okay. The younglings are okay—well, I can’t find Oda, but if he’s anywhere, he’s back at Renatus’s estate which… it’s probably safer than—”

“Look out!” Aria said, looking upward and Val glanced upward to see a giant flaming hunk of metal hurtling towards them.

“Shit—” Val said, hitting a panel on his gauntlets to fly out of the way, feeling the heat of the flames as the large flaming piece of wreckage fell down just barely missing them. He readjusted their course so that they would fly diagonally between the relay towers of the Dooku estate. An alarm started beeping on one of his gauntlets and he swore again.

“What is that?” said Aria.

“It’s fine,” Val said automatically, knowing full well it wasn’t fine, “Just low fuel. We’re descending already so it shouldn’t be a—” the flames at the base of his jetpack suddenly popped and went out and they were tumbling through the air again before Val smacked another button on his gauntlets and they reassumed their previous safer speed of descent.

“We can make it before you run out completely, right?” said Aria.

“Yeah! Of course! It’s okay. You’re sa—” Val started before his jetpack popped again.

“I don’t think it’s okay!” said Aria as they started tumbling down once more, with Val uselessly pressing the buttons on his gauntlets, trying to get any kind of thrust back. 

“I’m _trying,_ dammit!” said Val as they fell past the relay towers, “Hang on!” he said, clicking the grapple attachment onto his whipcord and firing at the relay tower. The grapple hooked into a second-story maintenance platform and they both dropped past it until the whipcord pulled taut and a sickening pop came from Val’s shoulder as they bounced on the end of the whipcord and then smacked into the side of the relay tower.

“Nnh—You all right?” Val said, wincing.

“You definitely dislocated your shoulder doing that—” Aria said.

“Are you okay!?” Val half-shouted, trying to distract himself from the searing pain in his shoulder and trying to be happy that what he had just done hadn’t resulted in his arm getting ripped out of its socket and them falling to their deaths.

“I’m okay,” Aria readjusted her grip around him in something that came close to a hug.

“Should have calculated that better,” Val was half talking to himself, half trying to distract himself from the pain, half trying to make sense of what had just happened as he thumbed at the button on his gauntlet to retract the whipcord and bring them up to the maintenance platform, “Should have adjusted for the extra weight—-should have been paying better attention to the stabilizers when—”

“Val,” Aria said, bringing up a hand and touching his helmet as they ascended with the retracting whipcord, “You did fine—-I didn’t think anyone would—you just—you _caught_ me.”

“I caught you,” Val said quietly, his shoulder still on fire. He forced a laugh. “Yeah I _caught_ you. That’s like—Holy shit—I don’t think—-fuck, they are never going to believe this shit back home when I tell them—” There was a large clank, the platform the grapple was on came loose, and then they were falling again, “Fuck!” Val managed to get a swear in, shut his eyes, and squeezed his grip tight around Aria as they fell. Maybe he could take most of the impact. He was wearing armor. It would be what, decent amount of broken ribs—he could still pilot with broken ribs—spinal injury worst case scenario—and then he realized they should have hit the ground by now.

He opened his eyes to see Aria, those spooky eyes wide, but not looking at him. He craned his neck around to see what she was looking at and saw a red-headed figure with both his arms extended toward them. He glanced down. They were floating, several feet above the ground.

“Cyp…?” Aria said his name breathlessly. 

“Aria—” Cyp started to say, and, in breaking his concentration, made both Val and Aria drop to the ground with pained grunts. 

“Cyp—” Aria started to say but Cyp immediately rushed over and helped her to her feet and suddenly had her in a tight hug.

“Are you okay?” he said, breaking out of the embrace slightly to look her over, “The explosion—-did you—-?” 

“I’m okay,” said Aria. 

“I’m—ngh—also okay,” said Val, trying to get up.

“You are not,” said Aria stepping over and helping him up. 

“Ow—shoulder— _shoulder!_ ” said Val as he got to his feet.

“You need to get back on the ship with the younglings,” said Aria.

“The hell I will!” said Val.

“You can’t fight,” said Aria.

“The hell I can’t!” said Val.

“Lift your rifle then,” said Aria.

“What like you think I can’t—fuck—” Val unshouldered his rifle and immediately his hand went to his shoulder and he buckled over in pain.

“I don’t think you can fight, no,” said Aria, bringing a hand up under the chin-guard of his helmet and tilting his head up toward her, “Not on the ground.” She glanced over at Val’s ship and Val followed her line of sight to the turrets atop the ship. He unsteadily stood up straight. 

“Y’know you say consulars aren’t as militant as Jedi Knights but I keep finding that harder and harder to belie—”

“Droids!” Cyp suddenly shouted and ignited his lightsaber as Val and Aria ducked behind the barricade. Val grunted and his hand went to his shoulder, burning with even more pain between the fall and everything.

“Hey—-you wouldn’t mind using some of that Force magic like you did with that—Aria?” His eyes went from his shoulder to her, and saw that she wasn’t even looking at him. She was staring at Cyp, who was, clearly somewhat panicking, but at the same time almost effortlessly deflecting incoming blaster bolts from what seemed to be droid reinforcements. 

“He’s using a lightsaber,” Aria said quietly.

“Oh yeah. He does that now,” said Val.

“I can’t believe his form is still this good after all that time,” said Aria, and Val wasn’t 100% sure if she was talking to him or herself.

“Y’know you can stare at him more when we’re not being shot at,” said Val.

“Mm,” Aria gave a slight nod, still not looking at him, and Val wasn’t sure if she was listening. He forced a cough and muttered the word “Shoulder” in between coughs and Aria glanced over. “Oh—oh! Sorry I just—”

“Yeah it’s fine,” said Val as Aria put her hands on his shoulder, “Happens to every—”

“Deep breath,” said Aria, her hands gently padding under the plates of his shoulder guard.

“What?” said Val and Aria suddenly popped his shoulder back into its socket.

“AH!” Val’s shoulder seared with pain. 

“Get to the ship,” said Aria.

Val glanced over at Cyp, creating a slight opening with all his deflecting and lightsaber movements, and then to his ship, and then back at Aria. “You sure you’ll be all right?”

“What, you’re _worried_ about me?” said Aria with a slight laugh and playful grin.

“Yes,” the word flew out of Val like he had been choking on it and someone had just punched him in the stomach. The smile was wiped from Aria’s face and it took Val several seconds before he said, “Oh—you were being—you were joking about—-that time after Korbo—-I mean…” he sighed, “Fuck it. Yes. I’m worried about you. The Mando’s worried about the Jedi. How crazy and hilarious. Who saw that coming.” He put his hands on her shoulders, “Don’t die—-fff—-” His shoulder flared with pain again and he immediately let go of her to put a hand to it. Aria did that thing where she smiled but her eyes were still sad.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, and she glanced over at Cyp, “ _We’ll_ be fine. Go look after the younglings.”

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up,” said Cyp, deflecting more blaster bolts, “No matter how many we bring down, they just keep coming.”

“It’s Renatus,” said Aria, deflecting blasts alongside him before stepping up onto the barricade to draw more fire to herself and give Cyp some more reprieve, “He said Val activated a droid protocol. I think he can de-activate it, but he doesn’t want to.”

“So we find him and get him to change his mind?”

“Or get his datapad and do it ourselves. Whatever it comes to. Any idea where he is?” said Aria, looking between Cyp and Val.

“When I was in the murder box, he had to leave to set up the estate’s defense grid.”

“Too easy to get cornered in Dooku’s office,” muttered Aria. She paused. “The relay towers,” she said, looking around at the high towers bordering the courtyard and tarmac of Dooku’s estate. Val brought down the rangefinder on his helmet and looked up at each of the towers. A small bit of movement, a red light he remembered from a little probe droid down in Renatus’s study. He pointed. “That one. He’s on that one.”

“Then that’s where we’ll go,” said Aria.

Cyp touched her shoulder and pointed upwards. They watched as a small ship made its way overhead and then swooped low, its bottom hatch opening and a handful of more ramshackle droids falling out of it. Then just as easily as it came, it flew away from the estate.

“There’s his reinforcements,” said Val quietly.

“First thing you do when you get on your ship, Val,” said Cyp, “Take out _that_ ship.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Val.

“If you’re going to run for it, now’s the time!” said Cyp, deflecting another blaster bolt.

“You two be safe, okay?” Val slung his rifle onto his good shoulder, and gripping his formerly dislocated shoulder, stood up and made a run for the ship. Aria ignited her lightsaber and used the force to pull a droid toward her before slicing it in two, instantly drawing a portion of the droids’ blaster fire toward her. She glanced over at Val as he brought down the entry ramp of his ship and ran up it. He waved at them as the entry ramp closeds, and the engines of the stathas-class freighter light up blue as he started warming them up.

—

“Where’s Cyp? And Master Aria?” said Tepui as Val ran into the cockpit of the freighter.

“They’re going to take care of Renatus, in the meantime, we’ve got to give them an opening to get over to that relay tower,” said Val, taking off his helmet and warming up the engines.

“We?” Galix poked his head into the cockpit.

“Yes, ‘we.’ Either of you run a targeting computer simulator?”

Tepui and Galix exchanged uneasy glances, Val sighed “I really shouldn’t be teaching kids this…” he muttered as he hit autopilot and lead Galix over to the turret, “It’s like a flight simulator but…more shoot-y and move-y.”

“Those aren’t words,” said Tepui.

“I’m aware,” said Val, helping Galix into the seat of the turret, “Steering wheel turns you side to side, foot pedals tilt you up and down. Toe for down, heel for up, got it?” Val watched as Galix tested the controls, the seat spinning with the turret, moving the quad-laser cannons side to side and tilting them upward and downward. “Galix is on port, Tepui, you’re on starboard. When I yell ‘port’ that’s Galix’s target, ‘starboard’ is yours. I’ll take out what i can with the front guns and hopefully you won’t need to do this, but stay sharp,” He turned on the targeting computers with a panel in the wall near the turret and a screen lit up featuring a circle projected agains the transparisteel of the turret bubble, “You select the target on the computer, and it’ll lock on and track the motion as long as it stays within your sights. When it enters the circle, it’s in firing range. Save your ammo until its in the circle. Deep breath, short bursts.”

“You’re scared,” Tepui said quietly.

“Yeah,” Val said, heading back to the cockpit, “Not about to let that screw me up though. All right, seatbelts, and for the love of whatever freaky magic you worship or whatever, don’t shoot your teachers.” Val took a seat in the cockpit and fired up the engines.


	14. The Tower

_“It’s a bloodbath down here! We need reinforcements!”_ an assembly guard’s voice was barely recognizable through all the jamming and all the rain, but Clariz frowned and tapped at several icons on her screen. Foreman Toriss set a cup of caf next to her and she looked at him expectantly. 

“Empire’s putting the screws on the Assembly,” he said with a sigh, pulling up a seat next to her, “At this point, if we allocate any resources to the Dooku estate, they’ll know.”

“Well we can’t just leave them! They’re—-” Clariz cut herself off at the sound of more static coming from her screen and squinted.

“Can you isolate it?”

“This is as isolated as I can get it,” said Clarys, sipping her caf and adjusting some settings on her screen.

 _“Shit—-Civilian ships are—-shouldn’t even be—-”_ the transmission cut off then. Prae frowned, then reached over and pulled his gray Assembly jacket that he had set on the back of a chair and began buttoning it up.

“Sir?” said Clarys as Prae headed towards the door.

“I’m looking into this personally,” said Prae. Clariz collapsed her screen and stood up and walked after him to the lift.

“I’ll stay in comm contact with you. I won’t have an ensign risking her life,” said Prae dialing a button into the lift for the Commsatt hangar bay.

Clariz stepped into the lift and the doors shut behind her. She folded her arms. “We both know you’re not immune to whatever comm scrambling is going on down there. I brought this up to you. I’m seeing it through.”

“It’s not a matter of ‘seeing it through,’ said Prae. He unholstered his blaster sidearm and held it out to her, “You know how to use one of these?”

Clariz glanced down at the blaster, then up at him for a beat, snatched it from his hand, unlocked the safety and turned toward a wall and aimed it, quickly and easily but with a well-practiced steadiness.

“Good, you know the bas—” Prae started to say but then she re-locked the safety and started spinning the blaster on her trigger finger.

“I grew up in the Aparian wastes, sir,” she said, making eye contact with him as she continued spinning the blaster, now reversing the direction of the spin, “Not a lot to do out in the desert. Started practicing when the Clone Wars first broke out. Paranoid family. Thought the Republic would descend on our crappy little town any second with all the propaganda Dooku was putting out,” She sent the blaster spinning into the air and caught it with her left hand, not even losing momentum on the spin, “Technically I received top marks on CIS Marksmanship tests—-blasters, mainly—with rifles i was more average,” she reversed the spin on her left hand just as easily as she had done on her right, “By the time I was old enough to enlist for off-world forces, of course the CIS military was pretty much exclusively droid-dependent,” she tossed the blaster around her elbow and caught it, “Organics introduce too many variables into battles, they said,” she tilted her wrist so that the blaster was spinning on its side, and then reversed the spin of that as well, “I thought communications would at least get me off-planet,” she sent the blaster flying into the air spinning again and caught it, this time by the barrel. She held the gun out to him, the butt towards him, “It got me here.”

Prae was staring when suddenly there was a soft thump and a computerized voice said _“Hangar Bay”_ and the lift doors opened. He took his sidearm from her and just managed to say, “ _None_ of that was standard,” before holstering the blaster and walking out to the shuttles.

“All due respect sir, but none of _this_ is standard,” said Clariz, gesturing at the shuttle where he was typing in an override key for emergencies. The empire would be alerted of his override, but it was within typical day-to-day functioning of the commsatt that it wouldn't warrant a high priority reaction from the Empire. They would have a window of a couple hours, tops. The door to the shuttle opened and Prae pressed a hand to his forehead and sighed, “Okay. You can come along. You do as I say, understood?”

“Yes sir,” said Clariz, following him up the entry ramp into the shuttle.

—-

“Think they’ll be all right?” said Cyp. The Siyah’s blue engines let off steam as it lifted upward. Aria and Cyp’s clothes were all but soaked through at this point, but they hardly felt the cold. Their lightsabers steamed and seemed half blurred themselves by the rain, hissing and fizzing in the downpour.

“They’ll be fine,” said Aria. It maneuvered decently well for a freighter in atmosphere.

“Aria?” said Cyp.

“Mm?” Aria glanced over, at him.

Cyp opened his mouth, seemed to hesitate, then glanced over at the relay tower, “Do… do you have a plan for when we see Renatus?”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Aria admitted.

“He blew up his own ship trying to stop you,” said Cyp, “I thought I lost you when the purge started. If anything happened to you I’d—”

“Cyp you can’t think like that. You’ve been doing so well—-Now’s not the time to start panicking about what could happen and—”  
“Look you don’t understand. Aria, I—-” Cyp was interrupted as the freighter opened fire on a platoon of droids that had been advancing across the tarmac.

“There’s our opening! Come on!” said Aria, springing to her feet and running toward the relay tower. 

Cyp gave a glance in the general direction of the freighter as it went in for a final swoop before taking off after the droid reinforcement ship.

“I see your timing is excellent as always,” he muttered as he got to his feet and ran after Aria.

It wasn’t too long of a run, but between the rain and the blaster fire and the explosions in the background and the distant screams of Assembly guards, it felt far longer. Aria tried the panel at the base of the relay tower to open the door, found it locked.

“Cover me,” she said, plunging her lightsaber into the door. Cyp stood back to back with her, blocking the occasional stray blaster bolt with his lightsaber. Aria left a smoldering circle in the door, then shoved her weight against it, leaving a large gap in the door which she clambered through. Cyp dipped into the hole after her. The relay tower, being pretty narrow in general construction, had a minimal base level, which featured a large lift that Aria rushed toward and hit a button for. It was a welcome relief, being out of the rain for however long they had. The doors opened. She sheathed her saberstaff and stepped in and Cyp sheathed his own lightsaber and stepped in after her. She hit the button for the top level on the relay tower and the doors closed and the lift shuddered to a start and began moving upward. There were a few moments of slightly tense silence before the first level chimed and Aria cleared her throat.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said. Cyp looked from the door over to her. She wrung out the bottom of her black tunic, dripping water onto the floor “I mean… I’m not glad we’re here—-in danger, having to face someone we thought was a friend—but I’m glad you’re here with me. I don’t think I could do this alone. You…you’ve been brilliant.”

Cyp watched as she fidgeted. Her fingers first mindlessly going to the place where her padawan braid usually rested, then pausing and dropping down and clasping a bit, running her thumb over her knuckles. She was scared, he realized. Well of course she was scared—-it would be stupid not to be scared with everything that was happening. He was scared too, he knew that. Up to this point he had been able to ride his own panic from one objective to the next like a strong tide, not caught up in it, but rolling with it, controlling himself in the midst of it. He was so used to Aria being the stronger one—-even in the moments where she was talking about feeling afraid or vulnerable, he had just rolled with the postulate that she was a jedi and he wasn’t, that she could handle far more than he could—-always had and always would. But that wasn’t true, it hit him now—-she was a consular of the Jedi order, gifted in the force, wise beyond her years, far more powerful than her appearance suggested—but she was just as terrified as he was, probably more so. His fingers rolled and unrolled into a fist he wasn’t sure was in a clammy sweat or just cold and wet from the rain and his brain was a mess of partially formed sentences, his thoughts somehow incapable of forming themselves into something cohesive.

Her mouth thinned and she shut her eyes and furrowed her brow for a moment before she inhaled, sighed, and opened her eyes again. She finally spoke again. “Cyp, you have to promise me that if anything happens you and Val will get—-”

“I love you,” said Cyp.

“…the…younglings…out of here… what?” Aria looked over at him.

He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her toward him. “I love you,” he said, “I love your spooky eyes and your voice and your face and how brave and kind you are and how you see so much… _good_ in everything. I love your smile and the way you laugh. I love that you can strike fear into the hearts of people at least a foot taller than you. I love how you’re a Jedi and you still cry. I love the way you fidget and mutter and how…how every time you look at the stars you get this look like… nothing in this galaxy is impossible. I love more things about you than I thought were possible to love about a person. Please know that I have never loved anything and I will never love anything as I love you.”

“Cyp…” Aria’s eyes were wide and searching his face, not knowing what to look for or if she already found it.

“And I’m sorry,” Cyp said.

“S-sorry?” Aria could only dumbly repeat the word after him.

“I know it’s not fair of me to put this on you, here and now. Please also know that whatever happens, however you feel, I will always see you as my best friend and that I wouldn’t trade that for anything. If you don’t feel the same way, if you only see me as a friend,” he smiled, “That’s enough. It was always enough. I just….” a tear budded out of the corner of Aria’s eye at this point and Cyp reached forward and brushed it off of her cheekbone with his thumb, “I just thought you should know.” Aria’s mouth was hanging open, moving slightly, the words dying in her throat. He wondered if he should kiss her—-it seemed like the thing to do, but then the elevator chimed and came to a sudden, shuddering stop. They had reached the top of the spire and a soft chuckle escaped Cyp as he turned toward the door, “Nothing outside this door will be as terrifying as that just was.” Aria smiled and a weak giggle escaped her. As he turned to face the door he felt her hand slip into his, her fingers interlacing with his and squeezing a little. As he moved to glance down at their hands to make sure he hadn’t somehow tricked himself into thinking it had happened, he suddenly felt a slightly cool touch on his cheek. Soft, too clumsy and smooth to be fingers. He glanced over to see Aria’s face drawing back slightly and his hand went to his cheek. Aria cleared her throat and glanced off, blushing brightly.

“Did you just…?” Cyp started to say.

“Well…you know…” she said slowly, “For um…for luck.” The doors opened and the roar of the rain filled their world again. Aria’s fingers slipped from his, though he could have sworn she gave another slight squeeze with her knuckles as she did so, before wrapping her newly freed hand around her saberstaff. Cyp curled and uncurled his hand into a fist, consciously making a memory of the feel of her hand in his before he took hold of his own lightsaber and stepped out into the rain after her. 

Renatus was standing out in the rain, his wet curls hooking against his forehead and a faint red light highlighting his profile as he looked over his shoulder at them.

“You know, I didn’t think it was possible to be impressed and disappointed at the same time—but I guess changing what you thought was possible is something that comes naturally to the Jedi.”

“It’s over, Renatus,” said Aria, “You’re holding this place against the Assembly now, but it won’t take long for the Empire to overrun this estate.”

“Oh I know that,” said Renatus, glancing over at his datapad, “I’ve adjusted the protocol. A contingent of my droids have raided Dooku’s office and library. We’ve secured the geo-compressor as well. They’re being brought back to my estate as we speak.”

Aria and Cyp exchanged glances. “On the ship you’ve been using for your droid reinforcements, I take it?” said Aria. 

“Well I bloody well blew up my other one,” said Renatus, “I can’t be there to personally hack an Assembly ship to avoid tracking, so I’d rather get that ship prepped for hyperspace and be sure the artifacts are safe—” he cut himself off and turned around to look at her slowly, “You’ve done something.” 

“Me, personally? No,” said Aria, “But I imagine out there’s probably a Mandalorian who’s not taking being put in what he called a ‘murder box’ particularly well.”

Something shifted in Renatus’s face and Aria saw the red light that had been shining behind him suddenly fade as he pulled out his electrobinoculars and looked to the skyline.

—-

“Stay locked, are you locked?” Val’s throat was half raw from how much he had been shouting at the two younglings he had manning his turrets.

“It starts beeping fast when you’re locked, right?” Galix’s voice came down the hallways of his freighter.

“Yes, fire!” said Val and the ship jerked slightly with the force of its own turrets.

Val heard an explosion on the port side of the ship. “All right, good shot, kid!” he shouted down the hallway.

“Hey Val?” Galix’s voice came down the hallway.

“Yeah?”

“How do you tell when the fire from the ship you shot is going to hit your ship?”

Val glanced out of the side of his viewport and saw far more fire than there should be rushing from the port side.

“Hang on!” he said, turning hard. He didn’t keep artificial gravity on in-atmosphere on his freighter out of habit. If he had been making just a routine smuggling run it wouldn’t bother him much, but between dodging the turrets of the estate below and chasing after that swift little ship of Renatus’s over the mountains, it made the inertia and ensuing airsickness about ten times worse. “I told you not to use the missiles!” he shouted.

“I _didn’t!_ ” Galix shouted back.

“I only have three, I’ll know if you used one!” said Val, “Aria’s not going to be happy if she finds out you’re lying!” He paused then immediately turned hard again.

“Do you,” Val heard a gagging noise from the starboard side, “Have to keep doing that!?”

“Sorry, Tepui. Don’t throw up on your targeting computer,” Val accelerated the ship back towards the estate, “We still have to save your teachers.”

“Starboard fire! Starboard fire!” Tepui yelled.

“What?” said Val, and a blaze of turret fire blasted past his viewport, “Shit…” he brought up his targeting computer, “Empire’s here….Hang on!” He activated the freighter’s additional thrusters, “We’re gonna need to take a detour to lose these guys!” he turned the ship hard to fall out of the way of more blaster fire. He counted four imperial ships. “Hang in there, Aria,” he said, thrusting the ship upward to rise above the storm, “Hang in there just a bit longer.”

—

“No,” Renatus was staring at the falling wreckage of the ship through his electrobinoculars, “No-no—You can’t just…” he brought the electrobinoculars away from his face and looked at them. Lightning cracked behind him and Aria read heartbreak in his features. He picked up his datapad, pressed a few buttons on it, then his eyes widened as he pushed his curls off of his forehead and then cupped his hands over his mouth.

“I told you, Renatus. It’s over,” said Aria. 

“Do…. do you have any idea what you’ve done?” said Renatus.

“I imagine Val just blew up your ship,” said Aria.

“You—you don’t care, do you?”

“I care a great deal more about my friends than Sith artifacts,” said Aria, “It’s better they’re destroyed rather than letting them warp you further or risking them falling into the Empire’s hands.”

“You still care about me,” Renatus said it like she had just told a very clever joke and he had just got it.

“You tried to kill Val and a youngling,” said Cyp, stepping forward.

“But you both could just… hop on his ship and fly away from here, leave me to whatever fate the Empire has in store for me—-no, you’re here because you care,” he found only a cold furrowed brow on Cyp’s face so he fixed his gaze on Aria, “Because _you_ care.”

“I think you’re scared and angry and confused, and the Dark Side has taken advantage of that,” said Aria, “The Force is with you, Renatus—but you never had the training to protect your mind against the—”

“I don’t need your training!” Renatus’s voice hitched up again, high and manic and Cyp instinctively stepped in front of Aria. Aria put a hand on Cyp’s shoulder and he stepped aside for her. Renatus was pressing one hand to his forehead, looking nearly on the verge of tears as Aria stepped toward him.

“Renatus…” Aria spoke softly.

“Don’t look at me like that,” said Renatus.

“Like what?” said Aria, still moving forward slowly.

“Like you can’t figure out if it’s a child or a monster you’re looking at,” said Renatus. Aria stopped in her tracks. “I know that look,” Renatus said, glancing off, “I know it too well,” he motioned at her unlit saberstaff, “Did you come up thinking you might have to use that on me?”

“I’m prepared to use it on you,” said Aria, “I don’t think it has to come to that, though.”

“The threat of force is enough, isn’t it?” said Renatus.

“Your droids have killed dozens of the Assembly guard and you’ve tried to kill all of us!” said Cyp.

“Not you,” said Renatus, glancing at Cyp, “Not yet.” It was Aria who stepped forward this time, her grip tightening on her lightsaber and a grim, fierce light filling her gray eyes. Renatus looked at her and her expression softened. “I saw that,” said Renatus, “Don’t think I didn’t see that.” He looked between them and then smiled, “Oh—something happened, didn’t it?” He laughed a little and looked at her, “All that nonsense about how those sorts of attachments are more ‘compromising’—there’s hope for you yet.” 

“I don’t want your kind of hope,” said Aria.

“I think you do,” said Renatus. He rifled through his jacket and pulled out the source of red light from earlier, a small red crystalline pyramid, etched with sharp geometric glyphs. 

“Put that down,” said Aria.

“No,” he held it toward her and she inched back, “It’s not going to bite you, Aria. I still want the same thing you do, the same thing both of you want,” he looked between her and Cyp, “We can stop the Empire. We just need to be willing to do what’s necessary. Aria—I know you can do it. I know you can break free of all of that fear they put into you.”

Cyp saw the red light reflecting in her gray eyes. “Aria…” he said quietly. Aria extended a hand and the holocron lifted out of Renatus’s hand and floated over and planted itself in Aria’s palm. Cyp’s breath caught in his throat as she looked over it.

“I am afraid,” Aria said, glancing down at the holocron. She could hear it whispering to her. She didn’t have to be afraid. She could save her friends. She could avenge her Order. She glanced over at Cyp and all the whispers were silenced. “I am afraid,” she said, looking at Cyp, “But I won’t find any freedom with this,” she tossed the holocron aside.

“You—” The holocron had only clattered against the ground once when S4ZA shot toward them, its electrical stunner crackling. Aria ignited her lightsaber and blocked some of the crackling electricity before forcing the blade of her saberstaff through and cutting the little droid in two. Renatus extended an arm and suddenly Aria was hoisted off her feet, grasping at her throat, and then thrown back, slamming hard into the lift doors.

“No!” Cyp’s first thought was to run over to her, but he saw her groan and stir, then he looked at Renatus out of the corner of his eye, stood his ground, and ignited his lightsaber. 

Renatus’s eyes widened. “Wait—you—you’re seriously…?” Cyp glared out at him from beneath furrowed red brows and he assumed Form I. “You’re serious,” said Renatus, and he laughed a little, “Really? I mean," he shrugged and motioned at Cyp, “You know, you’re not a Jedi.”

“Neither are you,” said Cyp.

Lightning cracked again and Renatus visibly blanched. “Fine then,” he said, taking two ersatz-looking metal rods from his belt and holding them in both hands. Cyp heard Aria cough behind him and glanced over his shoulder at her. “Renatus—you didn’t…”

“Unlike you, I don’t give up at the slightest setback,” said Renatus, igniting the two lightsabers—-well, calling them lightsabers would be generous. They were ragged, ugly things, the sight of them reminding Aria more of the blaster bolt she had kept suspended in the air on Korbo’s freighter than a proper lightsaber blade. Red, angry, thicker and shorter than a typical lightsaber. The blades could only measure roughly from Renatus’s elbow to the tips of his fingers. Renatus assumed a position—-not the typical stance assumed by jedi trained in dual-wielding, but rather with his shoulders angled at Cyp, one lightsaber ahead of the other. A Serennoan dueling style, Aria figured, the blades too short to depend on the typical flash and intimidation that most duel-wielding styles afforded, but rather something developed for close quarters and dirty, desperate, cunning fights. And it showed, quickly.

Renatus advanced first, light on his feet, slashing at Cyp. Cyp easily blocked his first few attacks. Renatus was still adjusting to the movements of a blade that technically didn’t have any mass, but he was learning fast, and maybe it was training or the sheer force of fury and panic on his end that seemed to give him an unprecedented amount of energy. Cyp, however, had the Force on his side. That wave of panic he had been riding from task to task seemed to have receded, leaving some warm and glowing feeling in his chest, driving the exhaustion and the cold from his muscles. Red and blue lightsaber blades met and sparked and hissed in the rain, clashing again and again. Renatus wouldn’t hesitate to kick at Cyp, or try and bash at him with the hilt of the lightsaber if given the opportunity. 

Aria coughed again and rose to her feet, the impact of the door bringing back the memories of being slammed into the side of a relay tower with Val and then dropped on the floor. She inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. Inhale peace, exhale pain. One with the Force, she ignited her lightsaber and moved to join in and help Cyp but suddenly the dented lift doors opened behind her. She turned on her heel to see two ramshackle magnaguards.

“Aria!” Cyp shouted over his shoulder at her, red sparks were flying from Renatus’s lightsaber. 

“I can handle them! Just focus on Renatus!” She shouted back as she spun her saberstaff to force them back. She moved to push past the electrostaff of one but it knocked the blade of her saberstaff back and then issued a hard kick that sent her flying again, then bouncing hard and sliding across the ground. She coughed and sprung to her feet again,, calling on the force to shove one of the magnaguards hard. The droid slid back, its magnetized feet sparking across the roof and screeching with metal on metal. It made the mistake of lifting one foot to try and charge her and she thrust with her will and the Force one more time. It slid over the edge of the relay tower, the screech of metal falling silent before a clang was heard. Aria pivoted on her heel toward the second one and found it was much easier to confront without its compatriot. She tasted blood and realized her nose was bleeding again like it had back on the freighter. She gripped the electrostaff of the Magnaguard and then sliced through it, brain to pelvic auxiliary brain. It split apart into two nearly symmetrical halves. She turned on her heel back to Cyp and Renatus, Renatus had Cyp up near the edge of the relay tower, ready to push him off. Aria used the Force again, her head aching, and Renatus was sent skidding back on his heels, allowing Cyp to move away from the edge. “Thanks!” Cyp shouted to her, pressing forward.

Aria grinned a bit too fiercely and moved forward to flank Renatus when there was the sound of a large crackle and then there was pain and pain and pain in her back. The first magnaguard. The one she thought she had shoved off of the roof. It must have grabbed onto a ledge somehow and brought itself back up. _Less than five seconds until it stops your heart,_ she realized, seeing the electricity course over her body. It was burning and beating and stabbing and prickling all at once. Jedi are trained to have a great tolerance for pain. She screamed. Lightning cracked. Cyp turned his head at the sound of her scream. Renatus stabbed him through the chest. The look on Cyp’s face was more shocked than in pain, his hand still gripping his lightsaber as the sound of thunder filled the air.

“NO!” Aria shrieked and stabbed blindly backward with her saberstaff. She pivoted on her heel, breaking away from the stream of electricity and thrusting upward with the lightsaber. She heard the sound of saber cutting through metal and thrust harder, jaggedly cutting diagonally up through the magnaguard. It fell back into two useless halves and fell. Her body still wracked with pain from the shock, she started scrambling toward Cyp and Renatus. Renatus was looking into Cyp’s eyes, looking nearly as surprised as Cyp. Hand nearly numb as he gripped the lightsaber piercing through him. Cyp glanced back at Aria, struggling toward him horror and desperation soaking her features, rushing, and then looked back at Renatus. With the last of his strength he swept upward with his lightsaber and cut through Renatus’s arm, severing it just below the elbow. Renatus screamed and reeled back and the red lightsaber sheathed itself and clattered to the ground. Renatus fell on his back, his screams turning to moans and sobs as Cyp felt to his knees. His hand would have instinctively gone up to touch or cover the hole in his chest, but it was still burning hot. Aria caught him in her arms before he could fall hard against the ground. Her hand went toward his wound, even now she would try and heal him? He caught her hand to keep her from burning herself but the strength was slipping out of him.

“Cyp—” she said and he made a charred coughing noise, the cough wracking his body, causing him to convulse in her arms. She held onto him tight.

“Don’t,” she said, sobs choking her words, “Don’t leave me. Please. Please. I love you. Please, I can’t lose you again.”

That sick, half-charred choking noise escaped him again and he brought a shaking hand up. She instantly clasped it in her own and held it against her cheek. She was sobbing. “Stay with me. Please stay with me.” She felt his thumb shakily move, brushing a tear out from under her eye. “I can’t do this without you,” she said softly, “Please don’t leave me.”

“I won’t,” the two words came out of him in a slow sigh of a breath and then his hand stopped shaking in hers, his eyes still staring at her as the light fell out of them.

“Cyp—Cyp? Please—” she shook him, “No—you can’t…” her throat tightened and sobs wracked her body as she buried her face in his shoulder, the lightsaber wound in his chest still warm.

She heard soft pained grunts behind her and some quiet muffled crying and she looked up from Cyp. She glanced down at his face, not contorted with pain and death but simply staring upward into the rain. She closed his eyes and kissed his red hair sticking to his forehead with the rain before standing up and turning around. She felt a wave of calm wash over her. The sounds of the world seemed muted in her ears now. Even the burning pain in her back had dulled to almost an afterthought. Renatus was struggling to get to his feet, but being thrown off balance by the loss of his arm, his feet were sliding against the wet roof of the relay tower as he kept falling, trying to keep the stub of his arm from touching the ground.. He was struggling toward his datapad. Aria calmly walked over and stepped on his remaining hand before he could reach it. A soft cry escaped him.

I’m sorry,” he was saying, “I’m sorry.” But she didn’t respond to him. She didn’t even make eye contact as she picked up his datapad and pressed a few buttons on it.

“Tell me how to shut down the droids,” she said, tapping through his datapad. Her voice was raw from crying, but there was a terrifying calmness about it.

“Aria please—-I wouldn’t—-I didn’t want to—-” Renatus said but suddenly he was clawing at his throat with his one remaining hand as his entire body was lifted off the ground. Aria had her hand extended toward him. His legs were flailing uselessly.

“The droids,” she said. as he gasped and grabbed at his throat.

“Abort… Protocol… 8642852,” Renatus choked out and Aria dropped him. He cried out as his arm stub struck the ground and was gasping and coughing. She tapped at the datapad and it made several beeping sounds of confirmation. The sound of blaster fire below the tower died out within seconds. Aria dropped the datapad, then ignited her saberstaff and stabbed it. 

“It’s over,” said Renatus, “See? It’s over.”

Aria used the Force to open the lift doors, and seemed to briefly consider walking away and leaving him there on the tower, but then seemed to better consider it. “No,” said Aria, turning toward him.

Instinctively he grabbed at his remaining red lightsaber and ignited it, pointing it at her, terror in his eyes. “Revenge is not the Jedi way,” he blurted out.

“I thought you didn’t want me to be a Jedi,” said Aria. She extended her hand and Renatus felt a force on his lightsaber. 

“What are you doing!?” he said. Suddenly his lightsaber started sparking and sputtering, _“What are you doing?!”_ He said again. He noticed that the the blade of the lightsaber was sparking as it was getting shorter. She was forcing it down. She was forcing it back into the crystal. Her nose was bleeding. He desperately moved to throw his lightsaber away from himself but then found that she was using the force to keep his hand clasped around the grip.

“Aria please—Aria you don't have to—! I’m sorry! I’m _sorry!”_ he was shouting as his body was lifted off the ground again. A high pitched noise started coming out of the crystal chamber of his lightsaber as she continued forcing the blade to recede into it. Aria knew the noise. She had heard it before. Aria took a few steps, and then throwing her whole body into the movement, used the Force to throw Renatus and his screaming lightsaber, the blade all but disappeared, into the lift. She closed the doors with the Force. Renatus was screaming, “Aria please! Please, Aria! Ari—” He was cut off by the muffled sound of an explosion inside the lift. Smoke was coming out of a large crack between the lift doors.

Aria exhaled and the sound and the pain seemed to rush back into her world. She sheathed her lightsaber and picked up one of the electrostaffs of the magnaguards to steady herself, knowing that if she sat down she would probably pass out. Leaning on the electrostaff slightly, she made her way back to Cyp’s body. She stared at it until finally, her own body could take no more and she sank to her knees next to it. Suddenly she was casting a stark shadow over it and she looked over her shoulder to see the bright white headlights of the Siyah closing in on her. Val. The younglings. She hauled herself to her feet and stood up. The Freighter hovered over her and the landing ramp opened. Val edged out onto it, several feet above her head. “Where’s Cyp?!” he shouted over the roar of the engines. Aria glanced over her shoulder and Val followed her eyes. “Oh no,” he said, but he said it so softly she couldn’t hear it over the engines. “Renatus?!” shouted Val.

“It’s done,” said Aria.

Val’s eyes widened slightly, but he gave her a nod. Not proud, but relieved. Then the panic seemed to return to him. “Empire ships are moving into orbit!” he shouted, “Some are already in-atmosphere! We need to go!”

Aria looked back over her shoulder at Cyp’s body.

“Aria!” Val shouted, “They need you! Those kids need you! Please! we need to go!”

Aria blinked several times and looked up at Val. She held on to one end of the electrostaff and shoved upward with it toward him. he grabbed the other end and hauled her up onto the landing ramp. The landing ramp closed and they were inside the ship. Val got to his feet and Aria tried to stand as well but her legs turned to jelly beneath her. “Hey—” Val caught her before she collapsed.

“He’s gone,” Aria’s voice was quiet, “He’s gone.”

“Come on, stay with me, we still gotta get off plan—” Val said but he felt a warm wetness on her back and he pulled his hand away, finding it bloody, “Kid—” he started to say.

“He’s gone,” Aria said again, falling unconscious.


	15. Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a short chapter. Getting close to the end, now! For the love of god someone please hug Aria.

Aria woke with a soft gasp in a small and rumpled bunk. She moved to sit up immediately but winced and grunted and laid back down on her side, her back stinging. The room was dark but she glanced over to see the soft glow of a light switch. Moving up on the bed with her elbows and grunting a bit with the effort, she reached out, touched the button and the room lit up.

It was cramped—only slightly larger than the closet she had been locked in, but with even less space between the bunk, a locker, and a small worktable and made even smaller by the posters on the wall. There was an antique propaganda poster featuring a woman in a very un-functional-looking variation on Mandalorian armor winking and flexing with a large piece of scrap metal with the words ‘Keep Scrapping’ written in bright red aurebesh beneath her. Taking up even more space on the walls were several different blueprint-like posters that featured rifle diagrams and hastily written down arrows and notes drawn directly onto the posters, as well as some smaller crude sketches of possible armor modifications and more polished practice designs for some armor decorations she immediately recognized. She was in Val’s room, she realized. She knew he was a smuggler but somehow it had never really sunk in for her that he lived on this ship. She looked down at the bunk she was on and wondered how someone his height could possibly sleep comfortably on it.

Then the events on the relay tower suddenly rushed back to her and hit her hard. 

Cyp. Cyp was gone. Her friend. Her family. The boy she loved but never called it love. The boy who loved her and who would follow her far past the ends of the galaxy. He was dead. He was dead on a relay tower with the rain pounding down on him. She could feel her chest tightening and her breath falling away from her. Cyp was gone and in her rage and grief something inside her had broken. She had done something monstrous. She killed Renatus when he had practically surrendered. When he was begging for his life. Jedi didn’t do that. But Cyp—what would Cyp do if he was there? If he had seen her do that? But that was just it, wasn’t it? She had done it because Cyp _wasn’t_ there, because he had been taken from her but—no—Her breath was getting shorter. Breathe. Breathe. Remember your training. Tears blurred her vision and she could feel them running down her face as her sight darkened at the peripheries with her shortening breath. Breathe, damn you, you can move objects with your mind, but you can’t even breathe? The door to the room suddenly slid open and she saw the small form of Galix.

The light of the hallway caught the wetness in her eyes and Galix looked visibly stunned by her appearance. She practically tumbled out of the bunk and scrambled to him, half on her knees.

“Galix—-Galix are you okay?” she said, her hands clumsily touching at his face and shoulders as if to make sure he was still real.

“I’m okay,” Galix said and Aria whipped her arms tight around him and squinted her eyes shut.

“I’m so sorry. I should have—I’m supposed to keep you safe,” she said.

“I’m okay,” Galix said again, clearly not liking seeing her in such a state, but having no idea what to do about it, “You’re not safe either,” he said.

“Wh-what?” Aria pulled away from him slightly, hands still on his shoulders.

“It’s not your fault because you’re not safe either,” said Galix. He shrugged. “Jedi aren’t safe anymore. That’s not your fault.”

Aria’s eyes were wide and wet and bloodshot and her mouth was hanging open slightly. “Do… you know about Cyp?” she said quietly.

“Val told me,” said Galix, he looked sad, but then seemed to remember something, “Oh! He said I gotta tell him when you wake up!” Before Aria could say anything, Galix broke away from her and rushed down the hallway. She could hear Galix and Val’s voices overlapping and then glanced over at the doorframe and grabbed ahold of it and struggled to pull herself to her feet. As she slowly rose upward, the pair of pants she was wearing slipped down halfway to her knees and she finally noticed that she was not wearing the clothes she had passed out in. She was wearing an enormous and tacky shirt advertising a Mandalorian scrak band called “Black Strill” and an equally too-large pair of olive pants. She had one arm braced on the doorway and her other hand hiking the pants back up around her waist when Val hurried down the hallway to her.

“Woah—Okay—slow down,” he said as she was forced to put more of her weight against the doorway to stabilize herself, “You’re still recovering from the—-” Aria grunted and winced and her hand flew to her back, “…from that. You want to sit down? Let’s sit down.”

“I’ve spent enough time in a bed,” she said, moving out of the room and down the hall, one hand stabilizing herself against a wall and the other holding her pants up. 

“Okay… debatable,” Val said, walking after her.

Her hands momentarily traced against a gauzy texture on her back. “You bandaged me up,” she said, making her way into the cockpit.

“Oh—-yeah…” Val rubbed the back of his neck.

Aria slumped down into the co-pilot’s seat on the bridge and winced hard again and then felt her bandages. “You did a good job,” she said quietly.

“Yeah well…” Val sat down in the pilot’s seat, “Y’know…done my fair share of field dressings. Don’t have Jedi magic but…you make do, I guess.”

Aria glanced down at the shirt and pants she was wearing.

“Oh—yeah that was…” Val cleared his throat, “The back on your old tunic was all torn up and… I mean—you were soaking wet and shaking. I tried to wake you up but you wouldn’t—and I couldn’t just—”

“I understand,” said Aria. She looked out the viewport, “What happened after I passed out?”

“Still had to shake some Imperial ships,” said Val, “Managed to hit hyperspace as soon as we got out of the atmosphere…” he gave the dashboard an an affectionate pat, “She held together.”

“The younglings?” said Aria.

“Galix and Tepui are here. Tepui’s resting… the Box was… hard on her,” said Val, “Oda—I tried to turn around to get back to Renatus’s estate but by then…” he sighed, “I’m sorry. I couldn’t… The Empire was….” he rubbed his forehead.

“It’s his fault we ended up in the Box anyway,” Aria heard a voice and looked up. Tepui was clinging on the doorframe. “He wouldn’t have wanted to come.”

“Tepui!” Val said sharply.

“He didn’t want to come before!” said Tepui, “He had that Sith Holocron!”

“Tepui,” Val said a bit more gently and Tepui glanced over at Aria, eyes still bloodshot and wet, “Maybe you should get some more rest…” said Val.

Tepui backed away from the door and headed down the hall.

“All that time…?” Aria said slowly, “That’s where he was wandering off to? All that time?” She buried her face in her hands, “Oh kriff, I’m an idiot….”

“Hey—Don’t start with that,” said Val, “You weren’t the one with a basement full of Sith shit. Renatus kept saying all that crap about you….not being limited by the Order or whatever—” Val paused, “He probably started with Oda.”

Aria pursed her lips and pressed her hands to her forehead, slumping forward. Val reached forward to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder but hesitated and drew his hand back, rolling his fingers, unsure of what to do. “I should have been paying better attention. I should have…” she sighed.

“Look…you… you thought you could trust him. You thought you were safe,” Val ran a hand through his hair, “You can’t blame yourself if someone’s lying to you.”

“I should have seen it coming,” Aria shook her head.

“Maybe,” Val shrugged a little, “But…look, I don’t know a lot about Jedi. Like about 85% of what I know about them I’ve only learned in the past few days being with you—but one of the things I think…I think the really…uh….Jedi-est…part about you is that you assume the best in people. You see the best in people even when they don’t see it themselves… and…yeah, the Jedi got betrayed, and—and you got betrayed…or…something. I dunno. Renatus was a piece of shit. But… you give everyone the benefit of the doubt and well… yeah that gets you into trouble, but I think we’d be in a lot more trouble if you….didn’t do that. I dunno if I’m making sense.” He sighed, “Anyway—Oda’s good at hiding. If he manages to avoid the Empire and if the heat dies down on that planet—maybe we can head back there and try and find him. I don’t think we’re in any shape to do that now, though. I think we should go to Takodana. Get you some decent clothes, tell Maz and my Mom what happened with Korbo—see if we can get another smuggling job and—why are you looking at me like that?” 

“‘We,’” Aria said, “You said ‘we.’”

“What about it?” said Val.

“Just—just having us aboard your ship puts you in so much danger—-you don’t have to…you could just… drop us off on the nearest populated world and forget you ever saw us.”

“Why would I want to do that?” said Val.

“Because just having me in your life could get you killed!” said Aria, “The Empire is after people like me!”

“Both the Republic and the Empire were never friendly to smugglers,” said Val, shrugging, “Besides, you’re pretty handy at patching me up and pretty good in a fight.”

“The younglings,” Aria said leaning forward in her seat, “The younglings are—”

“About the same age I was when I started working on smuggler’s ships,” said Val, “I mean…look, if you don’t want to stay, I won’t take it personally. I can drop you off if you want. I just think we’ve got a better chance if we stick together.”

“I—It’s not that I don’t want to stay I just—I just….” Aria hugged herself close, “I’ve…I’ve seen my master die, I’ve watched Cyp die…I can’t… I can’t keep watching the people who help me die. I don’t want to see you die.” 

“Mm…” Val leaned back in his seat, “Well… I don’t want to see you die either. I guess we’d better watch each others’ backs then.” Aria’s eyes widened and her lower lip started quivering. Val blinked a few times, noticing tears brimming in her eyes. “Hey… you okay?” 

Aria’s breath shuddered a little as she breathed in and she lunged forward and hugged him tight. The movement caught Val off guard for a few moments before he glanced down at her placement against him and adjusted his arms accordingly so that he could return the embrace without touching her bandages. Then Aria broke away from him and was wiping her tears off her cheeks.

“I’m sorry…I’m a terrible mess right now…” she said softly, snorting up a now runny nose. 

“You’re not,” said Val, “With everything that’s happened…” he trailed off, “If…if you ever need to talk about the tower or anything… I’m here.” Aria’s mouth was hanging open. “…No pressure or anything,” said Val. 

“I—thank you,” said Aria. She moved to stand up and Val got up to help her. “i…think I should go check on the younglings,” she said, moving to the doorway of the cockpit.

“Yeah, you know, do what you need to do… try and get some rest though, okay?” said Val.

“I will…” said Aria, leaning against the doorway, one hand keeping her borrowed pants from falling down.

“And Aria?”

She glanced over her shoulder at him.

“I’m sorry. About Cyp. He was a good guy,” said Val. 

“I know,” said Aria. She looked far away for a moment before shaking her head. “I’ll—uh..” she cleared her throat, “Younglings.”

“Younglings,” Val agreed.

Aria gave a nod before slipping out the door. 

—-

“Yikes,” Clariz looked around at the estate. There were blaster marks everywhere, and broken bits of droids, explosive marks staining the walls. The Clone Wars hardly ever came home to Serenno, despite one of the heads of the Separatists living there, but Clariz wondered if this was what it may have looked like. She knelt near the body of one of the Assembly guards. No, it would have been clone bodies, not…she hesitated on the word ‘human.’ The Clones _were_ human, grown in bacta tanks and artificially aged, but still human. But the Assembly guard weren’t soldiers—-more like salarymen with blasters, easily overwhelmed by what must have been hordes of battle droids…or cheap knock-offs, anyway. Foreman Toriss was still questioning some surviving members of the Assembly guard while Clariz poked around different areas of the estate looking for more survivors and some clues as to what happened. Glancing up from the Assembly guard’s body, she looked over at one of the relay towers and noticed a circle of light at its base. “Hello,” she said, rising to her feet and walking over. The light was in fact, coming from the interior of the tower and a large, nearly perfectly circular hole had been cut into its door. Clariz held her blaster at the ready and turned on her comm. She glanced down to see the missing ‘hole’ of the door on the floor. She turned her comm on. “Prae?” she said “I need you to come to the northwest relay tower and have a look at this door. I don’t think it was just Assembly guards and droids here.” She looked down the shallow hallway and then saw the broken remains of a lift at the end of it. “Huh…” she said quietly. 

“Clariz I’m getting calls in from the Commsatt. Empire’s going to be sending in investigators. We’re going to need to get out of their way if we want to keep our heads.”

“I know, I know, just let me finish checking this out,” said Clariz, bracing herself against the wall and using her legs to shove aside the large sheet of metal that was all that remained of the lift doors aside. “Woah,” she said, her comm still on.

“What are you seeing?” said Prae over her comm. Clariz looked around the broken and dented lift, its inside completely blackened.

“I think someone set off a grenade or something in here,” she said, looking up at the broken remains of the lift lights, “If I had to guess, it went off at the top, and the explosion made the lift fall all the way down the relay tow—” her foot hit up against a lump and she glanced down to see a vaguely human shape, just as blackened as the rest of the elevator. “Oh no…” she said quietly, dropping to one knee.

“I’m making my way over to you,” said Prae, “What are you seeing?”

“There’s someone in here,” said Clariz, “I mean… there was someone in here.” She clicked her tongue, “Poor bastard,” she stood up and moved some broken metal and glass aside with her foot to get a better look at the corpse.”Cripes… the arms are blown clean off. Prae, is there any chance we can get some Serennoan forensics teams in here before the Empire comes? I want to figure out what kind of explosive—“

The corpse on the ground suddenly let out a rasping, raking, shuddering gasp and Clariz screamed.


	16. Inquisitors and Epilogues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AAAAHHHHH AHHHH IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S FINALLY DONE!!!  
> THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR READING!!!  
> I MIGHT WRITE A SEQUEL FOR IT SOME DAY BUT FOR NOW AHHHHH IT'S DONE!!!!  
> SPECIAL GUEST APPEARANCES BY THE GRAND INQUISITOR AND DARTH VADER AND SOME OBSCURE LEGENDS IMPERIAL LADY AND THAT CUTE IMPERIAL CAPTAIN FROM THAT SAW GUERRERA EPISODE OF REBELS!!

The Imperial agent sat across from Prae and Prae leaned back in his seat.

“Ensign Kora’s been released, right?” said Prae as the agent scrolled through a report on his datapad, “She didn’t have anything to do with this. I was the superior officer—she’s my responsibility.”

“Oh—of course, of course,” said the agent, not making eye contact as he scrolled through the datapad, “This is all just a formality, really. Your actions were technically legal within the framework of the Assembly—-such hiccups are natural with a regime change.”

“A formality,” said Prae, glancing down at his cuffs, “Look, Agent—uh…”

“Herilane. Agent Herilane,” said the agent.

“This really isn’t necessary,” said Prae.

“Your files here say you were a soldier—Pre-Clone Wars…fascinating,” said Herilane, continuing to scroll down in the datapad. He set it down, “You of all people should understand the importance of protocol, then. Now I’m going to ask you again—what did you see coming down through the atmosphere?”

“A civilian ship,” said Prae, “I wasn’t paying much attention to it—I was a bit distracted by the estate of the deceased Separatist leader being on fire, you see.”

“Mm—Understandable,” said Agent Herilane, swiping something aside on his datapad. 

“My first concern was for the Assembly guards,” said Prae.

“So why not request a contingent of stormtroopers?”

A frown tugged at the corner of Prae’s mouth, “I wanted to solve this and keep this within Serenno’s business. If I respond to every disturbance by calling in stormtroopers, the Serennoan people will lose faith in their government and resist all efforts to help them—Assembly or Empire.”

“Do you dislike the Empire, Foreman Toriss?” said Agent Herilane, leaning forward.

“My opinions on the Empire are irrelevant,” said Prae, “My duty is first and foremost to Serenno. If compliance to the Empire assures the safety and advancement of Serenno, I have no qualms with it.”

“Hm…” Agent Herilane said and began scrolling through his datapad again, “Now I know things may be hard to remember at your age, but I want you to try and describe the civilian ship you saw flying away from the scene. Even the rough size of it and color should help us narrow down what kind of—-”

The door suddenly slid open behind Agent Herilane and a stormtrooper walked in.

“Agent,” the stormtrooper saluted, “I’ve come to relieve you of your charge.”  
Agent Herilane turned around in his seat and squinted at the stormtrooper. “Why wasn’t I informed of this?”

“Security protocol, sir,” said the Stormtrooper, “There’s been a breach concerning the other prisoner. We’re moving the schedule forward.”

“Other prisoner?” Prae repeated and Agent Herilane looked alarmed and looked back at Prae. They had not referred to Prae as a prisoner yet. Agent Herilane frowned.

“I should have been informed of a breach,” said Agent Herilane, turning his attention back to his datapad, “I want you to tell me your authorization co—”

The stormtrooper’s sidearm was already drawn and before he could finish his sentence, the two stormtroopers guarding the door and Agent Herilane were hit with the blue rings of a stun blast in rapid succession. Herilane slumped over the table and Prae’s mouth hung open, but then he watched as the stormtrooper spun their blaster sidearm on their finger before holstering it and his brow furrowed.

“Please tell me it’s not you under there,” he said, sighing.

Clariz pulled off the stormtrooper helmet. Her black hair was undone from its Imperial-regulation bun and tied half-back. “I’m here to rescue you,” she said. 

Prae’s shoulder’s sagged and he rubbed his forehead, “I’d say it’s more likely you signed the orders for our execution.”

“Oh don’t worry, they were already going to execute us,” said Clariz, sliding Agent Herilane’s datapad across the table to Prae. Prae glanced down at the datapad. He had been scheduled for a firing squad in two hours. In a sense, Agent Herilane hadn’t lied to him—it really was all a formality. Clariz paused, “Actually that’s probably not something you say ‘Don’t worry’ about. Anyway we should get going.”

Prae held up his cuffed hands.

“Oh! Great idea!” said Clariz, grabbing another blaster rifle off of one of the stunned stormtroopers, “You can be my prisoner!”

That really wasn’t what Prae was suggesting but he just sighed and stood up as Clariz put the stormtrooper helmet back on. He was getting too old for this—scratch that, he had gotten too old for this several years ago, but Clariz was already hooking her arm in his and leading him out the door.

“How’d you get out?” said Prae softly as they walked down the sterile-smelling hallways of the Imperial light cruiser.

“I didn’t have as much security as you,” said Clariz, “Also didn’t have the brightest guard. Kind of crazy what you can get away with if you’re cute and crying. These guys aren’t like the clones at all.”

Prae looked at Clariz as they walked down the hallway as the idea she planted in his mind played out in his head. Get hysterical enough, a guard comes into your cell, disarm him, steal his armor. Smart kid. Had to be smart coming out of the Aparian Wastes.

“I don’t understand,” Prae said, shaking his head as they walked down the hall, “What we did see down there—-I mean we didn’t see enough of anything for that knowledge to be a threat to anyone.”

“Well I guess the Empire thinks otherwise,” said Clariz.

“You were the one who found that body,” muttered Prae.

“It wasn’t dead,” said Clariz, peeking around a corner then suddenly straightening up. “Look sharp.”

They both fell silent as a contingent of stormtroopers rushed past them from another corridor. Clariz kept her blaster pointed on Prae and gave them a nod as they hurried by.

“So how are we getting back to Serenno?” said Prae, looking around as the stormtroopers continued on down the hall.

“We can’t go back to Serenno,” said Clariz.

Prae stopped walking, “What?”

Clariz tugged his arm to keep him moving. “We need to go backwater and fast. Somewhere the empire doesn’t have enough resources to bother pursuing us.”

“How?” said Prae.

“I don’t know how far this cruiser is from Serenno, but it can’t have left the D’astan sector yet,” said Clariz. Suddenly a voice came over the light cruiser’s speakers and they both froze.

“To all security personnel on the containment levels—this is Imperial Agent Herilane. Two of the prisoners have escaped and one has disguised themselves as one of the troopers. All troopers within levels D, C, and E, are to report to your commanding officer for verification.”

“Oh blast,” said Clariz and then she ran over to one of the info-monitors on the wall, “Come on,” she said tapping through it, “Come on—”

There was the sound of stormtrooper footsteps thundering down the hall.

“I think they remembered my face,” said Prae.

Clariz hastily slid a finger across the monitor and closed the blast door. Then the info-monitor beeped. “Oh thank the stars we’re within Celanon’s gravitational pull.” She then pointed down the hallway the contingent of stormtroopers had originally come down. “This way!” she said.

She continued down the hallway with Prae hurrying after her as best he could when she stopped short in front of a door.

“Why did you—” Prae said but reached her side and looked into the little viewport on the door. There was a young Rodian in a cell, curled up on the hard bench that was supposed to serve as some kind of bed. Couldn’t be older than ten.

“We can’t leave him,” said Clariz.

“We don’t even know if we can get ourselves off this ship—much less do it with a child,” said Prae.

“Well _we can’t leave him_ ,” said Clariz, tapping at the panel next to the door. 

“Do you ever get tired of this ‘plucky action girl’ thing you have going on?” said Prae.

“Maybe I’ll get tired of it when I’m an old fart like you,” said Clariz, furrowing her brow as she bypassed some security codes.

“I’m still your superior. That’s Foreman Old Fart to you,” said Prae. The door slid open and the Rodian child gasped and backed himself into the corner, terrified.

“It’s okay!” said Clariz, taking off her helmet, “We’re going to get you out of here. What’s your name?”

“O-Oda…” Oda’s eyes got misty, “The lady said I didn’t need help but—but now I’m here…” he pressed his hands to the side of his head, “I’m not strong enough! I’m scared!”

“The lady?” Prae repeated, “What lady?”

“The lady in the red gem,” said Oda, “She told me secrets but now I can’t talk to her anymore. She’d know what to do. She’d know how to get out of here.”

Clariz and Prae exchanged glances. Clariz shrugged and turned back to Oda. “Well—if the lady said you didn’t need help, but you still need her help, that doesn’t make sense, does it?” said Clariz.

Oda scratched one of his antennae, “I guess not…”

“So we’ll help you!” said Clariz, “Come with us and stay hidden, can you do that?”

“Yes,” said Oda.

“All right let’s hit those escape pods,” said Clariz, heading out the door, Oda and Prae following in tow.

——

When Renatus awoke he was floating in a bacta tank. He moved to touch the glass but glanced down and saw that he had no arms. Cyp took one, he remembered. The other—He remembered the look in Aria’s eyes—up until that point her Umbaran blood mostly just rendered her a slightly eerier-looking human, pasty with pale eyes—there, on that relay tower, he had seen the truth of her, that the blood of the shadow people flowed strong in her, vengeful and unflinching in the face of darkness. He had wanted to see her without the limits of Jedi dogma on her mind. He wondered if he had wanted this. He had always found the Sith stupid—Master and apprentice with one destined to destroy the other, and yet, something had been forged on that relay tower between him and Aria. Something beyond master and apprentice, something beyond partnership, something even beyond hatred and rivalry. She was alive. He could feel her out there somewhere in the galaxy. He wondered if she could feel him. 

Then just as quickly as he had awoke, he felt his strength leaving him again. He did not know who had brought him here, he did not know how he had lived, or why, only that he had no desire to die—there was still so much in this galaxy he wished to see. Serenno—no, had he ever truly wanted to protect Serenno? Had he ever truly wanted to take down the Empire? All he had cared, all he had truly cared for, was the pursuit and preservation of Jedi and Sith knowledge—Serenno and the destruction of the Empire were only there to validate that preservation. Two histories of the Galaxy—the whole story only came together when light and darkness were brought together. Together. They had to be together. He had to find Aria again. He couldn’t die. Not yet. And then consciousness left him again.

—

“It’s not going to work,” said Prae as Clariz yanked at the hatch release for the escape pods.

“Have any better plans?” said Clariz, taking a few steps back then running full speed and ramming herself into the hatch with a loud grunt. Prae was grateful she had stolen some stormtrooper armor before attempting to do that.

He thought for a moment. “Escape pods are usually on lockdown until an actual emergency with the ship,” he paused, “…or a safety drill. You were able to bypass the commsatt’s own info-defenses to amplify distress signals coming from Serenno—could you bypass the default settings on an escape pod to send it into safety drill mode?”

“Do I look like an astromech!?” said Clariz but they heard shouting down the hall and Clariz sighed, “I’ll need some time,” she said, turning to the monitor next to the escape pod hatch and tapping away at it. She managed to close down the three blast doors leading to the escape pod deck. She took out her blaster. “Hands out,” she said. Prae held his hands out and she shot at the metal bars keeping the connecting the manacles and Prae pulled his wrists free, the metal rods sticking out of them still glowing red hot. 

“Really wish you picked up an actual key,” said Prae, looking at the manacles.

“Thank you, Clariz Kora, for your daring rescue of me, your old fart of a supervisor,” said Clariz, rolling her eyes as she handed him the extra blaster rifle she had taken.

Prae sighed and laughed a bit. “You’re doing great, Ensign Kora, for a soon-to-be high profile fugitive from the Empire.”

“Thank you,” said Clariz as Prae held up the rifle and tested its weight.

“How can you laugh?” said Oda, hugging his knees next to the escape pod, “They want to kill us. How can you laugh? Aren’t you scared?”

“Very scared,” said Clariz, continuing to work at the monitor, “Laughing is dumb, but it helps keep the fear from making us do something dumber.”

“It’s okay to be scared, you just can’t let it control you,” Oda said, apparently more to himself than to them.

“Yeah! Exactly!” said Clariz. 

“What is the meaning of this!?” a voice came from the other side of the blast doors, “Blocking off the escape pods violates countless safety regulations! Open these blast doors immediately and give me your ID numbers!”

“Negative!” Clariz shouted, “There’s been a—uh—reactor leak! Big reactor leak! Give us a minute to get it contained!”

“ _You’re with the escape pods! There’s no reactor in that sector!_ ” 

“Got it!” said Clariz and the hatch to the escape pod opened. Just then, however, the blast doors started opening as well and blaster fire started coming through. 

“Get in there and prep for launch!” said Prae, laying down cover fire as Clariz clambered through the hatch. He glanced down at Oda, “That means you too!”

Oda stood up but didn’t get into the hatch. “It’s okay to be scared, you just can’t let it control you,” he said.

“Kid! Now!” said Prae, shooting at the incoming stormtroopers and managing to hit two of them as blaster fire blazed past them. Instead of clambering into the escape pod, Oda raised his hands.

“It’s okay to be scared,” Oda said again.

“Kid!” Prae shouted, but Oda suddenly threw his entire body into a pushing movement and suddenly the group of stormtroopers were thrown off of their feet and falling onto their backs. Prae looked down at Oda, still standing with arms outstretched, breathing hard.

“How—how did you—” Prae started.

“Prae! Come on! We need to go!” said Clariz and both Prae and Oda leapt into the escape pod and shut the hatch behind them. With a shudder and a jolt it shot out of the light cruiser.

—

Captain Sabran stood in the light cruiser’s control deck, watching the TIE fighters run their practice formations as she sipped her caf. 

“Ma’am?” a young cadet rushed forward with a datapad and tucked her hair out of her face, “Agent Herilane keeps reporting in on—”

“On his security breach, I know,” Captain Sabran sighed and took another sip of her caf, “Hasn’t he locked it down _yet?”_

“They um… appear to have…commandeered an escape pod, Ma’am,” the cadet looked sheepish.

“I told him not to arrange for that firing squad,” muttered Sabran, swirling her caf in her mug.

“He wants your permission to destroy the pod,” said the cadet.  
“Seems a waste of a good escape pod—-we could just reclaim it after they flee from it on the planet’s surface—well it probably won’t be much good after atmospheric entry. I suppose we can humor his murdering some harmless Commsatt grunts,” said Sabran absentmindedly, “Cadet—uh….”

“Brunson, ma’am,” said the cadet saluting.

“Cadet Brunson. Inform the chief gunnery officer that—” Sabran stopped herself as a star destroyer suddenly emerged from hyperspace, “Belay that,” said Sabran.

“Ma’am?” said Cadet Brunson.

“I said belay that,” said Sabran as a jet-black lambda-class shuttle emerged from the star destroyer, “Tell Herilane he can clean up his own damned mess! I won’t have us blowing up one of our own escape pods in front of a superior officer’s shuttle! And get an honor guard prepped on our flight deck!”

Cadet Brunson saluted and rushed off and Sabran pinched the bridge of her nose. “Of course. Of course they’re sending one of those bloody sorcerers or whatever the hell the Emperor called them.”

—  
The words came muffled through the glass and bacta.

“Wake him up.”

“That’s inadvisable. He needs rest in order to—”

“I said wake him up.”

“But—”

“I am here on orders from Lord Vader himself. Wake. Him. Up.”

Some sour-smelling gaseous stimulant flowed through the oxygen mask on Renatus’s face and Renatus’s eyes snapped open and he took a sharp gasping breath. His eyes tingled and stung in the bacta, but he was able to make out a Pau’an all in black and gray standing before the tank.

“Can you hear me?” said the Pau’an. 

Renatus nodded.

“Can you speak?”

Renatus paused and tried to speak. His throat was raw, and nearly unresponsive.

“If you cannot speak with the mask on, we will happily drain the tank—” the Pau’an started.

“No,” Renatus’s voice came out croaking at first. He coughed and swallowed, “I… can speak.”

The Pau’an looked thoughtful, “You seem familiar.”

“ _You_ seem familiar,” said Renatus, coughing again.

“I don’t have time for jokes,” said the Pau’an.

“Say…’a liar and a looter’…” said Renatus slowly.

“A liar and a looter,” the Pau’an said easily.

“Oh it _is_ you,” said Renatus, moving forward to put his hands on the glass but finding, once again, that he had no arms to do so with.

The Pau’an looked shocked, then angry, then leaned forward and squinted, “Impossible…” he said softly. The Pau’an quickly took out a comm from his pocket, “My lord—,” he said looking up at Renatus, “I’ve found one of them. I’ve found one of the survivors from the temple I told you about.”

The sound of a respirator crackled over the voice comm, and a deep voice spoke, “Show him to me.” The Pau’an quickly brought up a hologram of a dark-cloaked figure in a domed helmet, wearing a face mask that resembled a skull. For a few seconds, the sounds of Renatus’s own breathing on his oxygen mask in the bacta tank stopped, and he felt as if the room, as if the very interior of his bacta tank had gotten much colder.

Renatus glanced down at the white medical briefs he had been put into, “Well…this is embarrassing,” he paused and looked at the Pau’an, “Wait—I thought you would have burned down with the temple.”

“The chosen one showed me that there was a different path,” said the Pau’an.

“The ‘Chosen One?’” Renatus repeated. 

The Pau’an gestured at the hologram. “The chosen one,” he said matter-of-factly. There was a long, unsettling silence filled only by the sound of the ‘Chosen One’s’ respirator. “Now,” said the Pau’an, motioning to one of the lab techs to bring him a chair, “You are going to tell us everything that happened in the last few days since I saw you.”

There was another long pause and Renatus said, “All right.”

—

“They should have fired on us by now,” said Clariz, looking out the viewport of the escape pod. She flinched as she watched a Star destroyer come out of hyperspace. “Oh stars that’s big…” she said quietly. She looked thoughtful, “Maybe we’re out of their range? They’ve forgotten about us?” she heard beeping near her and glanced over at a control monitor. “Okay, you should both get ready and strap in, we’re going to be entering Celanon’s atmosphere soon. Prae—?”she looked up from the control monitor. Prae was staring into space. 

“…how?” Prae said finally.

“How what?” said Clariz, but Prae turned over and looked at Oda.

“How did you do that?” said Prae.

Oda was strapping himself into his seat for atmospheric re-entry, “The lady in the red gem taught me,” he said easily.

“We don’t know who that is,” said Prae.

“The lady in the red gem also said I shouldn’t tell anyone where I came from,” said Oda, kicking his legs back and forth in his seat.

“Prae—what’s he talking about?” said Clariz.

Prae sighed. “Just tell me you have this thing aimed at an area with a spaceport nearby.”

“Of course,” said Clariz, glancing back at her monitor.

“It’s as you said,” said Prae, getting into his seat and strapping himself in, “We need to get backwater and fast.”

—

“For what it’s worth… she did warn me those crystals would get my arms blown off…” Renatus said, half curled into a ball at the bottom of his bacta tank, “I don’t know where she is now, but I’m sure she’s with the Mando. He’s under her spell. Same as the archivist. Bloody Umbarans…” 

“That’s quite enough,” said the Pau’an. A long pause passed once again, filled with Renatus’s own breathing on the oxygen mask in the bacta, the rasp of the chosen one’s respirator. The chosen one spoke for only the second time since the Pau’an had brought up his hologram.

“Did she mention anything about Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi? Would she know where he is?”

When the fear that seemed to petrify him when the chosen one spoke subsided, Renatus shook his head, “She mentioned something about him telling her to have hope, but she didn’t know where he was.”

“The message…” the chosen one folded his arms thoughtfully.

“So it’s simple,” said the Pau’an, “We find her and destroy her.”

“ _I’ll_ find her,” said Renatus.

The Pau’an glanced up from his hologram of the chosen one. “What did you say?” 

“I’ll find her,” said Renatus, “I’ll find her and bring her to you. It has to be me. She made me. We’re a closed circuit,” he looked at the chosen one, “…please,” he said. He wasn’t sure if the chosen one could actually see out of the eyes in his mask—they seemed so opaque, but he stared into them all the same.

“Very well,” the chosen one said.

“My lord—” the Grand Inquisitor’s eyes widened, “Are you sure?”

“The fact that he is alive means the Force is with him. He is expendable. It will take more than one Inquisitor to hunt down the remaining Jedi. He will suffice.”

“Inquisitor?” Renatus repeated the word after the chosen one, “I like the sound of that… ‘Inquisitor.’”

—-

She was at the Jedi temple and Cyp was at her side. She was a youngling, small, barely tall enough to look out the viewport, but still she peeked out to see Coruscant’s lights glittering below.

“You’re staring again,” she heard herself say.

“Sorry,” said Cyp, glancing away from her and looking back down at the city.

“Aren’t you scared I’m going to control your mind or make your brain melt out your ears?” said Aria.

“…can you do that?” said Cyp.

Aria shrugged and shook her head. “No, everyone seems to think I can though. But we can’t, really. A lot of us like people to think we can, but we can’t.”

“It’s just…I’ve never seen an Umbaran outside the senate before,” Cyp was saying, pushing his shaggy red hair out of his eyes to watch the city lights below with her.

“That’s ‘cos we’re not allowed to leave,” said Aria, going back to her bunk and coming back with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She pulled it up over her head to keep it warm. Her head was shaved, as was fashionable on Umbara. 

“You can’t leave the senate?” said Cyp.

Aria giggled, “No, silly! The planet! Umbarans can’t leave Umbara unless they’re in the top ten castes.” Cyp looked horrified by this, “But it’s okay,” Aria said touching his shoulder reassuringly, “They let me leave ‘cos I’m a sewage-blooded abomination.”

Cyp looked even more horrified now, “Did they really call you that?”

“Mm-hmm,” said Aria, turning to look back out the window, rolling back and forth on her heels, “What did they call you back on your planet?”

“Well they didn’t call me _that,_ ” said Cyp, shuddering. He then folded his arms and looked quite stern for a youngling. “Well—just so you know, you’re not that.”

“Not what?” said Aria.

“Not a sewer-blooded…thing,” said Cyp, “You’re good.”

“I’m good?” said Aria, looking at him.

“Yes. The Jedi wouldn’t bring you here if you weren’t good. So you’re good.”

“I’m good,” Aria repeated after him and then seemed to stand in some strange awe of this, as if he had changed her entire reality with a magic spell. 

“Just thought you should know,” said Cyp, giving a single nod with his arms folded as he had seen some of the Jedi masters do. She then hugged him, which proved a bit awkward with his arms folded. She broke out of it quickly though, when light suddenly broke on the side of her face. Her breath caught in her throat and she pressed her hands on the transparisteel of the viewport. Umbara was a planet of eternal night, and the previous night had been her first ever on a different planet. This was the first time she had ever seen a sunrise. 

“Cyp!” she said, pressing her hands to her face, letting the blanket drop off of her shoulders.

“Told you,” said Cyp.

“Look, Cyp!” she said, shaking his shoulders and pointing at the rising sun.  
“I know,” Cyp said smugly.

“Cyp, look, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world!” she said, hopping up and down and laughing.

“Bet you feel silly now—” Cyp started but then cut himself off when he noticed tears running down her face as she cupped her hands over her mouth to muffle her own laughing, “Hey—” he said, a bit concerned, “Hey—it’s okay, it’s just a sunrise. They happen every day.”

“ _Every_ day?!” Aria said, the volume of her voice now prompting sleepy complaints from the other younglings in the dormitory. She covered her mouth with her hands again but then seized Cyp’s hands and gripped them in her own. She looked back at the sunrise and then back at him. “Every day?” she whispered to Cyp.

Cyp nodded.

“Then we need to see it again tomorrow!” she said loudly, prompting more complaints from the other younglings and Cyp went “Shh!”

“Sorry,” said Aria, and then she whispered loudly, “Then we need to see it again tomorrow. You’ll stay and watch it with me tomorrow, right? You’ll stay?”

“I don’t think they’ll let us stay up all night again,” said Cyp, yawning.

“Cyp,” said Aria, giving his hands a squeeze, her big, spooky gray eyes still wet.

Cyp sighed. “Yeah, I’ll watch it with you.” Aria’s face brightened and Cyp laughed a little. “You’re weird,” he said, then yawned again and turned away from the window, “I’m going to get some sleep before the creche masters wake us up.”

“Cyp,” Aria caught him on the baggy sleeve of his initiate robes with her hand, forcing him to stop.

“What?” Cyp said, a little irritated that even now she was still keeping him up.

“Thank you,” said Aria.

“Oh…” said Cyp, and Aria let go of his robes, “Okay.”

“You’re good,” Aria said. There was a large amount of earnestness in her voice, as if she wanted to shift his reality as much as he had shifted hers with that statement.

“Thanks…?” said Cyp.

“See you tomorrow?” Aria said as Cyp walked off.

“Yeah,” Cyp yawned again, “See you tomorrow.”

Aria’s eyes opened and she found herself back on Val’s ship, in the closet where he had first kept her. However, now the door was blasted off (courtesy of Korbo) and Val had set up a small pallet of a bed out of an emergency raft that was there if the Siyah was ever forced to make a water landing. She glanced down at the two younglings sleeping on either side of her, then carefully padded out of the raft/bed and walked down the hall to the cockpit. Val was there, dozing with the ship on autopilot. She had said she hated spending all that time in a bed, but truth be told she was sort of grateful for it. It put the relay tower farther away. Losing Cyp was still a painful and raw wound, but her own exhaustion was granting her some reprieve from grief. Her back itched and she plopped down in the seat next to Val, prompting him to jerk awake and check to make sure the ship hadn’t accidentally drifted into a debris field. He glanced over at her and rubbed his eyes. “Sleep okay?” 

Aria nodded and then itched at the bandages on her back. Val blinked a few times then suddenly perked up, “Oh shit, yeah, we’d better take care of those, huh?” he said standing up.

“Whenever you’re ready,” said Aria.

“All right,” said Val, closing the door to the cockpit and pulling off his gauntlets. He pulled out the medkit he kept below the dashboard and wiped his hand down with some antibac. Aria turned her back to him and took off the Black Strill shirt.

“Ready?” said Val, rolling his fingers, not used to not wearing his gloves and gauntlets.

Aria was pressing his shirt against herself. She had at least been able to change back into the trousers she had worn on Serenno, but the tunic was completely ruined and so she was still wearing the shirt—well, not now, but the bandages had to come off eventually.

“Ready,” said Aria.

Val’s finger’s dug beneath the bacta patch and started peeling it off. Aria’s breath shuddered a bit. “Doing okay?” he said.

“Mm,” Aria gave a nod and Val peeled off the rest of the bacta patch before moving on to the next one. This one came off a lot quicker. He peeled off the last one and Aria’s hand went and started tracing over the pink marks on her back.

“How does it look?” she said.

_Awesome,_ thought Val, and then he sort of wanted to punch himself for that being his first thought, “It’s not infected,” he said. Being electrical in origin, the scars spread and branched, splitting fractally out like a fern or a tree or like lightning themselves, and they spread out from a point on her left, close to her spine and stopped just below her shoulder blades and just above the dimples in her lower back. Scars were admired to the point of being fetishized in most Mandalorian circles, and if he didn’t know where she had gotten them, if he didn’t know what she had seen at the time she had received them, he would have said they were a work of art. “We could…replace the pads,” said Val, “See if that fades the scarring further.”

Aria shook her head. “We should save them for when we really need them,” she said, pulling the Black Strill shirt back on, “I can’t even see my back. I don’t care what it looks like. What’s our status on Takodana?”

Val sat back down in his seat and checked the dashboard, then looked out the viewport. “We’re at the edge of the Western reaches. It’ll still be a few hours.” 

“Few hours, huh?” said Aria, folding her arms in her seat.

“Youngling’s still asleep?” said Val.

“Yeah,” said Aria. A long silence passed between them.

“You know…” Val said, glancing over at her, “You never finished that story.”

“Story?” said Aria, “What story?”

“The one you were telling me on the way to Serenno… about the crystals in the ice cave and the kid who wouldn’t stop asking questions. Caden?”

“Caleb,” said Aria, “Caleb Dume.” 

“Yeah I want to hear how that one ends,” said Val, “Plus I won’t pass out this time and… you know if you’re up for it… maybe later you could tell me some stories about Cyp.”

“We’ll work our way up to that,” said Aria, smiling a little, “I do have some good ones about him though.”

“Oh I bet,” said Val, “But how does the ice cave one end?”

Aria smiled, then she told him about Caleb Dume and the ice caves on Ilum. 


End file.
